Discrepancy In Police Shootings: A Case Study

On July 6th, 2016, Philando Castile was fatally shot four times by a US officer. His name was the 99th name of black males who were victims of police shootings in 2016. In 2015, 249 black males were shot. Since the start of 2017, 178 black males have been shot. (THE WASHINGTON POST DATABASE). A reoccurring trend is the disproportionate number of black males that are involved in police shootings, compared to their white counterpart. It is estimated that blacks are about 2.5 times more likely to get shot than whites (The Washington post article). There has been an ongoing scientific investigation into why there is such a discrepancy in police shootings, despite being only 13.3% of the United States population (US CENSUS).
The Philando Castile
shooting bares little dissimilarity from the hundreds of other shootings. The sequence of events that culminated into the death of Philando Castile occurred within 74 seconds from start to end. At 9:04 PM, Officer Jeronimo Yanez pulled over Philando Castile for a broken tail light, and within 74 seconds, he shot his gun seven times into the car, four out of the seven shots fatally wounding Philando (74 Seconds). However, one manner in which this shooting stands out compared to the hundreds of others is that Diamond Reynolds, Philando’s girlfriend, was in the passenger seat and uploaded a Facebook live video stream of the seconds after the shooting occurred. This viral video, combined with the live dash-cam in Officer Yanez’s car provide a second, by second recount of the event.
Social media has played a significant role in propagating social awareness about police brutality with black males, which has in turn directed scientific research to further explore this disparity among police shooting victims. Research has shown that a variety of psychological concepts play a role in the actions of both a police officer, as well as the person that he is confronting. Implicit bias is a psychological concept that has risen to awareness of the general public, along with the increase in attentiveness to black males dying at the hands of policemen shootings. Implicit bias is, as the name implies, an unconscious bias that follows every individual living within a society every day. Greenwald wrote in 2006, that implicit bias does not have to be either favorable, or unfavorable (Implicit Bias – A scientific Foundation). Indeed, one can have, and probably does, an implicit bias towards almost anyone, as they are based on implicit attitudes as well as implicit stereotypes (Implicit Bias – A scientific Foundation).
Greenwald argues that an individual has implicit biases towards family members and friends, in the same manner that they do towards an individual with a differing ethnicity, but that implicit biases only become dangerous when acted upon, while directed at a member of a larger societal group (Implicit Bias – A scientific Foundation).
It is expected, for example, that a parent would preferentially treat their own child, over another, however implicit biases present a problem when they result in the disadvantage of members of another group, or outgroup members. Implicit bias would also be viewed as challenging when they are applied against outgroup members of larger societal groups, such as race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Most importantly, implicit biases pose a dilemma due to their unconscious nature (Implicit Bias – A scientific Foundation). An individual, fully endorsing the American liberal, democratic ideals, might yet have racist implicit biases. When confronted with a particular series of events, this individual might react instinctually, basing his or her actions on their implicit biases rather than their endorsed
values.
Interestingly, it seems as though implicit bias drives human actions while an individual is required to make a decision under pressure, in a short amount of time, similarly to the decisions that both the police officer and Philando Castile were required to make within 74 seconds. Research has shown that there is both behavioral, as well as neuroscience evidence that a snap-condition makes an individual rely on their implicit bias (Weapon Bias). This is an important concept to consider while looking at the actions taken by both Officer Yanez, as well as Philando Castile. Both of them had differing implicit biases entering the situation, and the culmination of both the implicit biases created a series of actions that lead to the death of Philando Castile.
In order to understand Philando Castile’s implicit bias, it is necessary to recognize the context that Philando Castile was entering the situation with. Him and his girlfriend had just come back from grocery shopping, when they got pulled over by Officer Yanez. It is important to note that Philando Castile had already been pulled over many times over the course of his adult life. The New York Times reports Philando having 49 traffic violations often for insignificant infractions (49 times), while NPR reports the number being closer to 46 times (NPR) in the 14 years prior to his death. These astounding number of violations amount to being pulled over about once, every four months (74 Seconds). This being said, Philando Castile was used to interacting with the police. It is also important to emphasize that Philando Castile was an African American male, and the awareness of tensions between the police and African American male population had already risen before his shooting. For example, the Black Lives Matter movement was created three years prior to Philando Castile’s death (BlackLivesMatter).
Knowing this, it is no surprise that Philando Castile treated Officer Yanez with the upmost respect.
Philando Castile, called Officer Yanez “sir”, waited to be asked to produce his license and registration, and warned the officer that he has a gun on him (Youtube video). This is the point where Philando Castile’s implicit bias drove his actions. It is possible to imagine Philando Castile acting with the utmost respect, and following all directions because he is afraid of the interaction with the policeman. It is plausible that this negative implicit bias based in fear of offending the policeman and therefore putting himself in a dangerous situation, caused Philando Castile to tell Officer Yanez about the gun that he was carrying. This sentence was a catalyst that set into motion Officer Yanez’s implicit
bias.
Similarly, to the context needed to understand Philando Castile’s actions, it is vital to see what background Officer Yanez was exposed to before approaching Philando Castile’s car. Necessary to further grasping the implicit biases that drove Officer Yanez, is knowing that four days prior to the shooting, on July 2nd, there had been a reported armed robbery at a convenience store on Larpenteur avenue (74 seconds). According to the police report, that night around 7:30 two African American males with dreadlocks, baseball caps and glasses entered the convenience store. One of the African American males, had marijuana on his baseball hat. After holding the cashier at gun point, the males walked out of the store carrying 700 hundred dollars in cash, and a significant amount of Newport cigarettes. Officers, including Officer Yanez, arrived within minutes, but failed to arrest or identify the perpetrators (74 Seconds). Larpenteur Avenue, also is the same road where Officer Yanez pulled over Philando Castile on July 6th, 2016. Right before Officer Yanez pulls over Philando Castile, he calls to his partner over the radio and states: “I want to stop a car (…) I have reason to pull it over, the two occupants just look like people that were involved in our robbery” (74 Seconds). In a second call to his partner, Officer Yanez explains “The suspect looks more like one of our suspects, just because of the wide set nose, I couldn’t get a good look at the passenger.” (74 Seconds). He waits for his partner to arrive, then pulls over Philando Castile for a broken tail light, despite having found nothing suspicious after running license plate.