The most explosive crisis law enforcement faces today is the allegation that rampant racial bias drives officers’ shooting decisions.
Yet a new study by Bryan Vila, professor of criminal justice and criminology, and two of his associates in the WSU Sleep and Performance research Center concludes that officers tend not to be biased against black suspects in resorting to deadly force, even when fatigued and thus potentially more vulnerable to making angry, irrational, and impulsive decisions.
Indeed, tired cops and rested officers alike are more hesitant to shoot black suspects than to shoot white ones in similar circumstances and to show better judgment in their shooting decisions when black suspects are involved.
“[T]oday’s police officers tend to be operating in a state of heightened awareness of the consequences of shooting a member of a historically oppressed minority group,” the study notes, and their extra caution regarding black suspects is not overridden even by the potentially debilitating effects of fatigue.