Whose Lives Matter: The Media’s Failure to Cover Police Use of Lethal Force Against Native Americans

• Author: Jean Reith Schroedel,Roger J. Chin
• DOI: 10.1177/2153368717734614
• Published date: 01 April 2020
• Date: 01 April 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Whose Lives Matter: The

Media’s Failure to Cover

Police Use of Lethal Force

Against Native Americans

Jean Reith Schroedel

1

and Roger J. Chin

1

Abstract

The August 9, 2014, police shooting of Michael Brown reinvigorated the Black Lives

Matter movementand triggered widespread mediascrutiny of police use of lethal force

against African Americans. Yet, there is another group, Native Americans, whose

membershave experiencedvery high levels of fatal encounterswith the police, butwhose

deaths arguably have not generated media attention. In this research, we tracked the

numbers of African American and Native American dea ths associated with police use of

lethal force as well as fatalities in police custody following arrest from May 1, 2014,

through the end ofOctober 2016. Then, we examined theextent of mainstream media

coverage given to thesefatalities in the 10 highest circulation newspapers in the United

States. Finally,we considered the reasons for thedisparities between the two groups.

Keywords

race and policing, community policing, deadly force, tri bal law enforcement, race/

ethnicity, African/Black Americans, native Americans

He was all beat up, they [Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Police] picked on him all the time.

They beat him up twice before. He had long beautiful hair and he said, “Mom I want to

cut my hair so they will stop pulling my hair.”

—Paula Mae High Bear

1

I told [the police] that my son was mentally ill, I tell them that every time I call, I just

asked for help. Instead they killed my son.

—Lynn Eagle Feather

2

1

Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Roger J. Chin, Claremont Graduate University, 150 East 10th Street, Claremont, CA 91711, USA.

Email: roger.chin@cgu.edu

Race and Justice

2020, Vol. 10(2) 150-175

ªThe Author(s) 2017

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/2153368717734614

journals.sagepub.com/home/raj

Although the August 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown sparked massive pro-

tests, his death was only one of several questionable African American deaths

resulting from police actions around the same time period.

3

The shooting ignited a

national debate about police use of lethal force against African Americans, but they

are not the only group whose members have a high probability of dying in encounters

with police. According to activists from the Native Lives Matter movement, American

Indians also have long suffered from high levels of police brutality, which was one of

the major reasons for the creation of the American Indian Movement in the late 1960s

(Wilkins & Stark, 2011).

4

Yet, native activists argue, the media has ignored their

deaths while giving prominent coverage of their African Americans counterparts.

5

While the epigraphs opening this article allude to examples of police interventions that

were largely ignored in mainstream media, the general validity of the native lives

claim has never been examined.

6

This study examines the media coverage of African American and Native

American fatalities over a 30-month period. We believe this research makes a

significant contribution to the understanding of the significance of race in media

framing, while extending the current debates over policing in minority communities

to raise awareness about interactions with Native Americans.

7

This focus on Native

American deaths, however, is not intended to downplay the importance of scruti-

nizing the very high number of African American fatalities but to extend that

attention to a group whose experience with racism often has been rendered invisible

(Robertson, 2015).

We analyzed data on African American and Native American deaths due to police

actions from May 1, 2014, through October 2016—not to reach normative judgments

about whether police actions are justified but simply to examine the discrepancy in

media coverage given to those deaths in the highest circulating U.S. newspapers.

8

We

also searched for stories about Native American fatalities in major English-language

newspapers outside the United States. While we expected to find a sharp increase in

national media attention given to police use of lethal force against African Americans

following the death of Michael Brown, we also expected to find that Black Lives

Matter activism kept the issue salient for an extended period before the publicity

subsided. In contrast, we posited that the deaths of Native Americans would generate

minimal coverage throughout the same time period except within Native American

media outlets.

The Role of Media in Framing Issues

The question of whether media attention varies according to the race of the individuals

is an important one, given the role of the media in a democratic society. The types of

frames used in media reports, or even their lack of reporting of incidents, act as a

filtering device that provides cues about issue importance and the ways of thinking

about events (Surette, 2007). The degree of media attention given to a policy problem

influences the degree of importance that the public assigns to the issue (Iyengar &

Kinder, 1987; Jamieson & Cappella, 2008; McCombs, 2004; Zaller, 1992). Media

Schroedel and Chin 151