Harvard Economist's Study Finds No Racial Bias in
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Police are not more likely to shoot a black suspect compared to a white suspect, according to a new study from a Harvard economist.
"It is the most surprising result of my career," prominent Harvard economics professor Roland G. Fryer told the The New York Times.
The study looked into 1,332 police-involved shootings in the past 15 years across 10 major police departments in Florida, Texas and California.
The analysis found that blacks and Hispanics are "more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police."
But when it comes to shootings of suspects by police officers, Fryer said the study did not find evidence of racial bias.
The examination of cases in Houston found that white suspects were more likely to be shot:
And in the arena of “shoot” or “don’t shoot,” Mr. Fryer found that, in tense situations, officers in Houston were about 20 percent less likely to shoot suspects if the suspect were black. This estimate was not very precise, and firmer conclusions would require more data. But, in a variety of models that controlled for different factors and used different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites.
The study found that police officers were more likely to use some type of force or draw their weapon against a black suspect compared to a white suspect.
Read more on the results, here .