USA: White police use more guns than blacks (study)

White American police officers use their gun more than their black colleagues, and even more in black majority districts, according to a study which confirms a feeling often expressed by minorities in the United States.

When called upon for emergency response, white officers use on average twice as often "the force of arms than black agents," write economists Mark Hoekstra and CarlyWill Sloan of A&M University in Texas. If they use their weapon in a comparable way " in white and mixed neighborhoods, white agents are five times more likely to use their weapon in predominantly black neighborhoods" , they emphasize in a study submitted to discussions on the site of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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To arrive at these figures, the researchers peeled more than two million calls to the 911 emergency number in two major American cities - not mentioned - which dispatch agents at random. The sample is therefore not necessarily representative of the whole country but is large enough to "demonstrate that the racial question counts at a time when the police, and the white agents in particular, know that they are being watched closely by media and the population, " they write, recalling that 24% of African Americans express " no confidence " in the local police.

The deaths of blacks shot by white police regularly provoke excitement in the United States, where they gave birth to the "Black Lives Matter" movement.

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