Officer-Involved Killings and the Repression of Protest

Abstract

This article explores the likelihood that officer-involved killings affect protest. Analyzing respondents to the Collaborative Multiracial Political Survey (CMPS) reveals no increases in protest activity between treatment groups exposed to officer-involved killings in their local area prior to participating in the survey and control groups who were exposed to officer-involved killings after survey participation overall. In fact, local exposure to Black victims appears to repress protest, but only among young Black respondents. This effect depends on the characteristics of the victim and the incident, as killings of low threat Black victims do not seem to repress protest.