First impressions are known to be important, and a new peer-reviewed study shows that the first 30 seconds of an interaction between a police officer and Black driver says a lot about how the encounter is likely to go.
A research team led by a Virginia Tech professor looked at the case of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who was stopped by a Minneapolis police officer for allegedly using a $20 counterfeit bill at a store. The initial moments between Floyd and the officer were reviewed. In less than 30 seconds of Floyd’s interaction with the officer, the officer delivered 57 words made up only of physical orders.
Floyd extended apologies, sought reasons for the stop, declared innocence, expressed fear and pleaded with the officer. Yet every dialog act from Floyd was met with a singular response from the officer: an order. Floyd died at the hands of the white police officer.
The first 45 words says a lot about how the encounter is likely to go, research shows.
“We found that there’s a key difference in how officers talk to Black drivers during the first moments of stops that end in an arrest, handcuffing, or search versus those that don’t end in such outcomes,” said Eugenia Rho, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech and lead author of the study. “Simply put, the officer starts off with a command rather than a reason in escalated stops.”
The data included traffic stops that ended in arrest, handcuffing, or searches and those that did not. It did not include any stops in which force was used.
“During vehicle stops, officers might ask for ID, explain why the driver was pulled over, or give a ticket. We were interested in how the balance of these dialog acts might differ between escalated and non-escalated stops,” Rho said.
The study found that the stops ending in escalation were almost three times more likely to begin with the officer issuing a command to the driver.
“We found that stops that end escalated, often start escalated,” Rho said.
“The most common way for the average citizen to encounter law enforcement is through vehicle stops,” Rho said. “So we really wanted to better understand how we can improve communication between officers and citizens during those encounters.”
Rho said she hopes the results of the study will lead to better de-escalation training for law enforcement.
“We want this study to really start conversations around how we can inform training around de-escalation practices for law enforcement and potentially a better understanding of how to facilitate relations between Black communities and law enforcement as well,” Rho said.
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Crystal Graham
