Citizen Willingness to Hold a Police Officer Criminally Responsible for the Use of Deadly Force: Examining the Correlates of Finding Guilt

• Published date: 01 October 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/21533687231161770
• Author: Omeed S. Ilchi,Shamma J. Hickling,James Frank
• Date: 01 October 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Citizen Willingness to Hold a

Police Off‌icer Criminally

Responsible for the Use of

Deadly Force: Examining the

Correlates of Finding Guilt

Omeed S. Ilchi

1

, Shamma J. Hickling

2

,

and James Frank

3

Abstract

Despite increased public attention on police killings of citizens and police accountabil-

ity in recent years, few studies have specif‌ically examined the support for convicting

and incarcerating a specif‌ic police off‌icer who was accused of wrongfully killing a cit-

izen. The current study examines the attitudes of undergraduate students at a large

Midwestern university about a case involving a white police off‌icer who worked

for the university police department and recently shot and killed an unarmed Black

citizen during a traff‌ic stop. Specif‌ically, it examines support for convicting and incar-

cerating this off‌icer, who was charged but ultimately went unpunished, and the factors

that are related to support for, opposition to, or neutrality towards holding the off‌i-

cer criminally responsible. The f‌indings indicate that respondents who perceive police

off‌icers as soldiers in a war on crime and hold symbolically racist attitudes were more

likely to oppose or be neutral about the off‌icer being held responsible. White respon-

dents, while not more likely to oppose the conviction and incarceration of the off‌icer,

were more likely to be neutral toward the outcome of the case, indicating that white

indifference might be a major barrier to holding police off‌icers accountable for their

improper use of deadly force.

1

Purdue University Northwest, Hammond, IN, USA

2

Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

3

University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Omeed S. Ilchi, Department of Behavioral Sciences, Purdue University Northwest, 2200 169th St,

Hammond, IN, USA.

Email: oilchi@pnw.edu

Article

Race and Justice

2024, Vol. 14(4) 543-563

© The Author(s) 2023

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/21533687231161770

journals.sagepub.com/home/raj

Keywords

deadly force, citizen satisfaction, treatment by the police, police brutality, police

accountability

Introduction

Although public attention on police killings of citizens, and calls for enhanced police

accountability continue to grow, particularly after the killing of George Floyd and

Breonna Taylor, prosecutions of police off‌icers remain rare. The conviction of

George Floyd’s murderer, Derek Chauvin, was an extremely rare outcome; from

2005 to 2019, 104 nonfederal law enforcement off‌icers were arrested for murder or

manslaughter. Of those 104, only 35 have been convicted (Stinson & Wentzlof, 2019).

The current study examines public support for convicting a police off‌icer in one of

those 104 cases. There have beenpublic surveys of citizen support for criminal trial out-

comes in cases involving off‌icer shootings of citizens; however, empirical studies

examining the correlates of citizen willingness to hold off‌icers criminally responsible

for killing a citizen are nonexistent. Our study attempts to f‌ill this gap in the literature

using a sample taken from the population served by the off‌icer involvedin the shooting

incident. The case involved a whitecampus police off‌icer at a large Midwestern univer-

sity and a Black citizen they shot and killed during a traff‌ic stop in 2015. The interaction

with the citizen after the stop and the shooting were both captured on the off‌icer’s

body-worn camera. The case led to great public unrest and outrage, especially after

the camera footage and audio were released to the public. Ultimately, the off‌icer was

charged with murder, though the trial ended in a mistrial. Charges were ref‌iled by

the prosecutor and the second trial also ended in a mistrial. Both trials were telecast

on local television and received extensive coverage on all of the local media outlets.

Because this study uses a specif‌ic case, and surveysa sample drawn from the population

the off‌icer served, the study is a unique addition to the literature.

Our primary focus is to determine whether respondent race, a belief in police-

military equivalency, symbolic racism, and a conservative crime ideology are

related to support for convicting and incarcerating this off‌icer who ultimately went

unpunished. The following section reviews the literature on our key measures and

how they may be related to support for conviction.

Literature Review

Past Research on Support for Convicting Police Off‌icers

Empirical research examining support for convicting police off‌icers using deadly or

excessive force is limited. After Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George

Floyd in April of 2021, there were several public opinion surveys that examined

whether Americans supported the outcome of the trial. A CBS News survey of approx-

imately 2,500 Americans found that three-quarters of Americans supported the guilty

544 Race and Justice 14(4)