Examining Individual and Aggregate Correlates of Police Killings of People with Mental Illness: A Special Gaze at Race and Ethnicity

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10887679221119397
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Special Issue Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/10887679221119397

Homicide Studies

2023, Vol. 27(1) 77 –96

© 2022 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/10887679221119397

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Special Issue Article

Examining Individual and

Aggregate Correlates of

Police Killings of People

with Mental Illness: A Special

Gaze at Race and Ethnicity

Krishanna J. Prince1 and Ivan Y. Sun1

Abstract

This study assesses the influences of race and ethnicity on the presence of resistant

behavior during deadly police contacts with people experiencing mental illness.

Drawing upon information mainly from the Mapping Police Violence Database,

regression analysis showed that race/ethnicity is not a consistent predictor of

resistance among people with mental illness. Hispanics with mental illness were less

likely than White counterparts to attack the police before being killed. Counties with

a higher percentage of the Black population have a higher likelihood of people with

mental illness attacking the police.

Keywords

use of deadly force, mental illness, race and ethnicity, public resistance, attack police

Introduction

Wallace, an aspiring rapper and father of nine, had a mental illness. . .Police officers

responded twice to the Wallace residence Monday before returning a third time to a report

of a person with a weapon, police said. Two officers – who did not have Tasers – each

fired at least seven rounds at Wallace after yelling at him to drop a knife, according to

police. Wallace was hit in the shoulder and chest. One of the officers put him in a police

1University of Delaware, Newark, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ivan Y. Sun, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, 18 Amstel Avenue,

Newark, DE 19716, USA.

Email: isun@udel.edu

1119397HSXXXX10.1177/10887679221119397Homicide StudiesPrince and Sun

research-article2022

78 Homicide Studies 27(1)

vehicle and drove him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later

(Hauck, USA Today, October 29, 2020).

The video footage of the shooting of Walter Wallace, Jr. went viral on social media,

stirring several days of public protests and violent confrontations with the Philadelphia

police amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The city later settled the wrongful-death law-

suit filed by the Wallace family with a $2.5 million payment in 2021. This deadly

incident elucidates the continuing difficulties and problems in police encounters with

people experiencing mental illness. It is challenging for police officers to identify

people with mental illness by simply observing their behavior through limited interac-

tions (Alpert, 2015). It could also be problematic as many police officers are uncertain

about the proper approaches to handle people with mental illness due to inadequate

training (Wells & Schafer, 2006). Furthermore, when the non-justice response is

unavailable, police officers often resort to coercive actions to handle persons with

mental illness, further aggravating the problem. Given that approximately a quarter of

police fatal contacts involve individuals with mental illness (Fuller et al., 2015), fur-

ther research is crucial to increase our understanding of these situational contexts and

to alleviate this disparity.

The killing of Walter Wallace, Jr. also represents a more significant issue of racial

disparities in police use of deadly force. For example, Mapping Police Violence

(2022a) reports that between 2013 and 2022, Black citizens have been 2.9 times more

likely to be killed by police use of force. Looking specifically at fatal shootings, the

Washington Post (2022) delineates that, between 2015 and 2022, both Black and

Hispanic citizens have been disproportionately shot and killed by the police despite

accounting for less than 13% and 12% of the U.S. population, respectively. Compared

to the rate at which White Americans are killed (16/million), deadly force kills Black

Americans at more than twice the rate (39/million) and Hispanic Americans at twice

the rate (28/million). These disparities in police killings raise essential questions about

the relationship between race/ethnicity and citizen resistance toward the police. Are

Black and Hispanic Americans more likely to resist the police? Does an increased

likelihood of resistance explain the disproportionate rates at which Black and Hispanic

Americans encounter police use of deadly force?

The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between race and

ethnicity and the resistant behavior of people with mental illness before being killed

by the police. Although many studies have examined the effects of various predictors

of police use of deadly force, we have limited knowledge about the interactions

between the police and people with mental illness. Even rarer is research examining

the behavior of people with mental illness, particularly their non-compliance or resis-

tance, before being killed by the police. This study assesses the linkages between race

and ethnicity and the presence of resistant behavior during deadly police contact with

people experiencing mental illness. This study is not about how mental illness may

shape the relationship between race/ethnicity and resistance. Instead, this study

addresses the research question: Are race and ethnicity associated with the likelihood

of resistance among people with mental illness in their deadly encounters with the

police?