Americans' Respect For Police Highest In Nearly 50 Years: Gallup Poll

As killings at the hands of police continue to dominate the news, and high-profile protests of police are in the national spotlight, the number of Americans who say they have respect for their local law enforcement is rising.

Seventy-six percent of people say they have "a great deal" of respect for their local police, up 12 percentage points from last year and the highest in nearly 50 years, according to a nationwide Gallup poll taken in October. Seventeen percent say they have "some" respect and 7 percent have "hardly any," the poll shows.

The last time that many people said they had "a great deal" of respect for local police was in 1967. Gallup has asked the question nine times since 1965.

The poll paints a different picture of America's relationship with its police departments than FBI Director James Comey, who said this month that police officers are serving in "a uniquely difficult time" following high-profile police shootings.

The poll also comes after the Justice Department said it will create a national database of police killings. Currently, no such database exists, and The Washington Post and The Guardian have created their own counts based on media reports and public records.

Respect for police is up across all demographics, according to the survey. The number of white people who said they have a "great deal" of respect increased from 69 to 80 percentage points compared to this time last year. Nonwhites, whom trackers show are killed by police at higher rates than white, went from 53 to 67 percent.

Eighty-two percent of Republicans said they had a great deal of respect, compared to 60 percent of independents and 54 percent of Democrats.

See the full survey results here.

Gallup surveyed 1,017 adults by phone between Oct. 5 and 9. The results have a 4 percentage point margin of error.

Image: Patch staff