Oakland Cops Show Less Respect To Black Residents: Study

Body camera footage from the Oakland Police Department shows that officers consistently treat black residents with less respect than they show to white residents, according to a new study from Stanford researchers published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

The study controlled for the officer's race, the type of the infraction or crime in question, the location of the encounter and the outcome of the interaction. Even when taking these factors into account, an individual's race remained the strongest factor in determining the amount of respect he or she received.

"Our findings highlight that, on the whole, police interactions with black community members are more fraught than their interactions with white community members," said Jennifer Eberhardt, a co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Stanford.

"To be clear: There was no swearing," said Dan Jurafsk, a professor of linguistics and of computer science who also worked on the study. "These were well-behaved officers. But the many small differences in how they spoke with community members added up to pervasive racial disparities."

The differences in treatment were relatively simple. White residents were more likely to receive an apology or a "thank you" when talking to police, while black people were much more likely to hear more subtle signs of disrespect, such as being call "dude" or "bro" or being told to keep their hands on the steering wheel.

This was the first systematic study of body camera footage of its kind, the researchers said. Read the full study here.

Relations between the police and black communities the took hold of the nation's attention in 2015, after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and nights of protests led to conflicts between the residents and local law enforcement. A subsequent investigation by the Justice Department found large disparities in the treatment of black civilians compared to white. This included explicitly racist emails between officials, the use of law enforcement measures as fundraising efforts, and systematically targeting black residents for increased scrutiny and maltreatment.

Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images