Is it Black and White? Testing racial framing effects of public reactions to newspaper vignettes of fatal officer‐involved shootings

Objectives 

To investigate how race shapes public perceptions of a fatal officer- involved shooting of an armed male citizen depicted in a scenario without racial identifiers, intraracial, and interracial.

Methods 

We distributed an online survey whereby respondents indicated justification, measured by four questions about the fatal officer-involved shooting, after being randomly assigned to three conditions that differed by the racial composition of the officer and armed male citizen. The control condition omitted racial identi- fiers, and two conditions depicted an interracial and intraracial deadly encounter between a White officer and a White or Black citizen.

Results 

White and non-White respondents similarly perceived the intraracial shooting, but White respondents perceived the control condition and the interracial shoot- ing as more justified than non-White respondents.

Conclusions 

An identical news article of a fatal officer-involved shooting can be perceived differently when altering the race of the officer and armed male citizen.