By The United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division and United States Attorney’s Offices Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Louisiana

On the evening of May 10, 2019, near Monroe, Louisiana, a Louisiana State Police trooper tried to stop a 49-year-old Black man named Ronald Greene for speeding and running a red light. Mr. Greene drove away. For 14 minutes, officers pursued him until he lost control of his vehicle, crashing on the side of the road. According to a sergeant that LSP regarded as its in-house use-of-force expert, what happened in the ensuing hours, weeks, and months was a “catastrophic failure in a million different directions.” Multiple LSP troopers and sheriff’s deputies arrived at the scene of the crash. They tased Mr. Greene repeatedly and pulled him out of his car. They punched him, dragged him by ankle shackles, and left him face down in the road. When Mr. Greene tried to roll onto his side, a trooper put his foot on Mr. Greene’s buttocks to hold him down on his stomach. That trooper later told a supervisor, “I’m trying to keep him laying down. I was going to sit him up, but I don’t want him spitting blood all over us.” Mr. Greene pleaded, “I’m scared. I’m your brother. I’m scared.” The LSP troopers deactivated or muted their body-worn cameras. When a supervisor arrived, he casually stepped over Mr. Greene, who laid moaning on the ground, and instead asked the troopers if they were ok. None of the troopers rendered aid to Mr. Greene, who became unresponsive and died before he reached the hospital. After Mr. Greene died, troopers filed reports attributing his death to a car accident. “We investigate crashes every day,” one trooper later told us. “No way someone died from a car crash with that damage.” One trooper who was there misdated the incident in an official report. LSP’s designated use-of-force expert at the time believed that was a deliberate attempt to cover up the incident. Another trooper miscategorized camera footage in LSP’s systems. And the supervisor who stepped over Mr. Greene’s body that night signed off on all the use-of-force reports. Over 15 months passed before LSP opened an Internal Affairs investigation into Mr. Greene’s death. In the intervening days and months, LSP troopers—including one involved in Mr. Greene’s death—would go on to assault more drivers. It was not until September 2020, 16 months after the incident, that LSP fired one of the troopers involved. It would take until 2021 for LSP to suspend a second trooper and fire a third who was involved in both Mr. Greene’s death and an assault of a different Black man. Mr. Greene’s death and its aftermath demonstrated serious failures at LSP—excessive force, improper supervision, ineffective training, and breakdowns in accountability. As our civil pattern or practice investigation revealed, these failures were not isolated, but part of a larger pattern or practice of law enforcement conduct that deprives people in Louisiana of their rights under the Constitution.

Following a comprehensive investigation, the Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the Louisiana State Police engage in a statewide pattern or practice of using excessive force, which violates the Fourth Amendment. Our investigation, opened in 2022, also included examining whether LSP engages in racially discriminatory policing. At this time, we make findings only as to excessive force. Though this investigation reveals systemic problems, we recognize that most LSP troopers work hard to keep the public safe. We commend LSP troopers and staff who devote their professional lives to serving the community. LSP began making much-needed reforms after video of Mr. Greene’s death became public in 2021, two years after the incident. We believe those changes may have contributed to some recent improvements in use-of-force practices. The changes include revising LSP’s use-of-force policy, creating a Force Investigation Unit to investigate serious uses of force, and updating training programs. However, more reforms are needed to remedy the unlawful conduct we found. We describe recommended changes at the end of this report. We hope to work constructively with the State and LSP to implement these reforms.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, 2025. 32p.

By Mapping Police Violence

Every year Campaign Zero works to make this data accessible and understandable to the public via Mapping Police Violence, a platform tracking civilians killed by U.S. law enforcement. This report aims to provide key takeaways concerning incidents of police violence that resulted in a civilian being killed in 2024. Mapping Police Violence relies on local journalism, and sources news through our system which collects, filters, and processes the data. While we strive to employ official data sources from local and state government agencies, we believe it is important to continue collecting data from publicly accessible media sources. This allows us to identify gaps in government data, and further triangulate and validate the data. As per our methodology, all incidents go through a multi-layered review process. It is likely that the number of incidents may increase in the coming months because some police killings and their circumstances are not reported until weeks or months later.

Campaign Zero, 2025. 4p

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Guy Ben-Porat and Fany Yuval

What does police violence against minorities, or violent clashes between minorities and the police tell us about citizenship and its internal hierarchies? Indicative of deep-seated tensions and negative perceptions; incidents such as these suggest how minorities are vulnerable, suffer from or are subject to police abuse and neglect in Israel. Marked by skin colour, negatively stigmatized or rendered security threats, their encounters with police provide a daily reminder of their defunct citizenship. Taking as case studies the experiences and perceptions of four minority groups within Israel including Palestinian/Arab citizens, ultra-Orthodox Jews and Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, Ben-Porat and Yuval are able to explore different paths of citizenship and the stratification of the citizenship regime through relations with and perceptions of the police in Israel. Touching on issues such as racial profiling, police brutality and neighbourhood neglect, their study questions the notions of citizenship and belonging, shedding light on minority relationships with the state and its institutions.

CAMBRIDGE. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 2019. 251p.

By NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Ferguson, Missouri has emerged as the site of the most disturbing display of racial tension, political powerlessness, and police violence in recent memory. The fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, is the latest tragic incident in a recent spate of police-involved homicides. Ferguson’s history of economic exclusion, disenfranchisement, segregation and poverty helped create a political system in which African Americans are grossly underrepresented in local government as well as an environment in which protesters and journalists from around the country were met with tear gas, rubber bullets, assault rifles, Kevlar vests, and military tanks as they bore witness to and reported on the aftermath of Michael Brown’s killing. This briefing paper aims to put Ferguson in focus by opening a window into the political, social, and economic conditions surrounding the life of Michael Brown. The report will look at Ferguson through the lenses of educational inequality, political disenfranchisement, economic inequality, and the criminal justice system – areas in which the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.’s historically has rooted its advocacy in support of African-American and other marginalized communities. Ferguson’s unadorned image revealed here is a candid snapshot into many of fault lines in American society. The challenges facing Ferguson are shared by locales across the country, and we can no longer turn a blind eye.

Washington, DC: NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 2024. 9p.

By Taryn A. Merkl PUBLISHED APRIL 29, 2021 With a foreword by Eric H. Holder Jr

The protest movement sparked by George Floyd’s killing last year has forced a nationwide reckoning with a wide range of deep-rooted racial inequities — in our economy, in health care, in education, and even in our democracy — that undermine the American promise of freedom and justice for all. That tragic incident provoked widespread demonstrations and stirred strong emotions from people across our nation.

While our state and local governments wrestle with how to reimagine relationships between police and the communities they serve, the Justice Department has long been hamstrung in its ability to mete out justice when people’s civil rights are violated.

The Civil Rights Acts passed during Reconstruction made it a federal crime to deprive someone of their constitutional rights while acting in an official capacity, a provision now known as Section 242. Today, when state or local law enforcement are accused of misconduct, the federal government is often seen as the best avenue for justice — to conduct a neutral investigation and to serve as a backstop when state or local investigations falter. I’m proud that the Justice Department pursued more Section 242 cases under my leadership than under any other attorney general before or since.

But due to Section 242’s vague wording and a series of Supreme Court decisions that raised the standard of proof needed for a civil rights violation, it’s often difficult for federal prosecutors to hold law enforcement accountable using this statute.

This timely report outlines changes to Section 242 that would clarify its scope, making it easier to bring cases and win convictions for civil rights violations of these kinds. Changing the law would allow for charges in cases where prosecutors might currently conclude that the standard of proof cannot be met. Perhaps more important, it attempts to deter potential future misconduct by acting as a nationwide reminder to law enforcement and other public officials of the constitutional limits on their authority.

The statutory changes recommended in this proposal are carefully designed to better protect civil rights that are already recognized. And because Black, Latino, and Native Americans are disproportionately victimized by the kinds of official misconduct the proposal addresses, these changes would advance racial justice.

This proposal would also help ensure that law enforcement officers in every part of the United States live up to the same high standards of professionalism. I have immense regard for the vital role that police play in all of America’s communities and for the sacrifices that they and their families are too often called to make on behalf of their country. It is in great part for their sake — and for their safety — that we must seek to build trust in all communities.

We need to send a clear message that the Constitution and laws of the United States prohibit public officials from engaging in excessive force, sexual misconduct, and deprivation of needed medical care. This proposal will better allow the Justice Department to pursue justice in every appropriate case, across the country.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, 2021. 26p.

By Deepak Premkumar

After a spate of protests touched off by high-profile incidents of police use of force, there has been a renewed focus on whether public scrutiny shapes policing behavior, otherwise known as the Ferguson Effect. This question has gained additional urgency as the country grapples with increases in murders. This paper provides the first national analysis showing that after police killings that generate significant public attention and scrutiny, officers reduce effort and crime increases. The effects differ by offense type: Reduced police effort yields persistently fewer arrests for low-level offenses (e.g., marijuana possession) but limited changes in arrests for violent or more serious property crimes. I show that decreased interaction with civilians through police stops may be driving the results. However, the increase in offending is driven by murders and robberies, imposing significant crime costs on affected municipalities. The effects only occur after there is broad community awareness of the incident. These findings are robust to numerous changes in empirical specification, transformations of the dependent variable, and varying levels of fixed effects that control for changes in state law and treatment spillovers. I also present evidence that suggests these effects are not driven by a pattern-or-practice investigation or a court-mandated monitoring agreement. To distinguish between the potential effects that may simultaneously impact arrest levels following a high-profile police killing, I develop a theoretical model that provides empirically testable predictions for each mechanism. I find that the reduction in low-level arrests corroborates public scrutiny as the causal channel. Finally, I provide evidence that the increase in offending is driven by both a response to the reduction in policing effort and a reaction to the police killing itself, suggesting that measures to reduce use of force should be prioritized.\

Unpublished paper, 2019, revised 2022. 132p.

By Daniel AC Barbosa Thiemo Fetzer Caterina Soto & Pedro CL Souza

We provide experimental evidence that monitoring of the police activity through body-worn cameras reduces use-of-force, handcuffs and arrests, and enhances criminal reporting. Stronger treatment effects occur on events classified ex-ante of low seriousness. Monitoring effects are moderated by officer rank, which is consistent with a career concern motive by junior officers. Overall, results show that the use of body-worn cameras de-escalates conflicts

Warwick Economics Research Papers . Coventry, UK: University of Warwick, 2021. 56p.

By 21CP Solutions.

From the Introduction: The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing was established by Executive Order under then President Barack Obama on December 18, 2014. President Obama charged the task force with identi- fying best practices and offering recommendations on how policing practices can promote effective crime reduction while building public trust. Since the publication of the task force’s final report in May 2015, there have been more than 133 national, state, or local task forces, councils, and working groups responding to police violence in communities throughout the country.1

The nation remains in a policing crisis, and too many poor communities of color face the adverse conditions of poverty and economic exclusion that aggravate the relationship between communities and police. The 2015 report by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing remains a significant influence on policing reform, but the country still confronts police violence that undermines community trust and confidence.

Task Force on 21st Century Policing: A Renewed Call to Action. Chicago: 21CP Solutions, LLC. 2023. 40p.

By Delores Jones-Brown, Joshua Ruffin, Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, Akiv Dawson and Cicely J. Cottrell

In a five-to-four decision announced in February of 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the parents of an unarmed fifteen-year-old Mexican national killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a cross-border shooting, cannot sue for damages in U.S. civil court. Here, we critique the majority and dissenting opinions and attempt to reconcile the strikingly different approach each used to resolve the case. Using a publicly available data set, we examine the homicide in Hernández v. Mesa, against the circumstances and context in which underage youth were killed by police within the United States over a five year period before, during and after the death of Michael Brown. The circumstances of the 121 cases suggest a greater need for police accountability if the justice system is to remain true to the protective “child saving” ideology that launched the founding of the juvenile court.

Criminal Law Bulletin. 56(5): 833-871, 2020.

By Scott A. Harman-Heath

Three times a day in the United States, a police officer kills someone. On any given day, this person might be an active shooter, a hostage-taker, or a bomber. But on that same day police might also kill a motorist reaching for his license (Philando Castile), someone selling loose cigarettes (Eric Garner), someone who used a counterfeit bill at a grocery store (George Floyd), or someone fleeing a traffic ticket for a malfunctioning brake light (Walter Scott). Intuitively, these scenarios present radically different uses of deadly force, but the nomenclature we use for deadly force does not account for this—all police killings are simply “deadly force.” This Article suggests that this is a mistake that stunts both scholarship and discourse. Instead, this Article contends, police killings demand a new taxonomy, one that easily and intuitively distinguishes between different types of deadly force. This Article proposes a framework that distinguishes between police killings we intuitively understand to be problematic and those we are more willing to accept. It does so by proposing that deadly force be divided into three categories—preemptive, anticipatory, and reactive—according to the degree of speculation an officer relies on when they decide to use deadly force. Importantly, because this Article advances a descriptive as opposed to doctrinal theory, its proposal need not be adopted by courts to afford substantial benefits to scholars, officers, or litigants. Rather, this Article aims to aid scholars’, litigants’, and courts’ attempts to classify and explain the differences between police killings. Unlike the catch-all term “deadly force,” this Article’s framework recognizes and accounts for the dissimilarity of many police killings, which have nothing in common besides the end result.

Cornell Law Review Vol.106:1689

U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice

The analysis focused on the police role and responsibilities; police organization, management, and operations; the coordination and consolidation of police service; police personnel selection, training, and career development; police-community relations; police ethics; the implementation of policing standards through State commission on police standards; and the community's role in law enforcement. Individual sections detailed the history of the police, police attitudes toward their role, internal and external controls, police leadership, the use of technology, police misconduct, the role of private police, citizen crime precautions, and community crime prevention planning.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 1967. 250p.

By U.K. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS)

Following the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer, the then Home Secretary commissioned HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) under section 54(2B) of the Police Act 1996 to assess current vetting and counter-corruption capacity and capability in policing across England and Wales. This was to include forces’ ability to detect and deal with misogynistic and predatory behaviour.

We were asked to consider current vetting (and re-vetting), arrangements for transferees, whistleblowing arrangements, the work of counter-corruption units and, where relevant, wider Professional Standards Departments.

London: HMICFRS, 2022. 163p.

By Mark Hoekstra CarlyWill Sloan

This paper examines race and police use of force using data on 1.6 million 911 calls in two cities, neither of which allows for discretion in officer dispatch. Results indicate White officers increase force much more than minority officers when dispatched to more minority neighborhoods. Estimates indicate Black (Hispanic) civilians are 55 (75) percent more likely to experience any force, and five times as likely to experience a police shooting, compared to if White officers scaled up force similarly to minority officers. Additionally, 14 percent of White officers use excess force in Black neighborhoods relative to our statistical benchmark.

AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW VOL. 112, NO. 3, MARCH 2022 (pp. 827-60)

By Frank Edwards, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito

This article from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America estimates the variation in the risk of being killed by police use of force in the U.S. across racial groups. The authors found that risk of being killed by police peaks between the ages of 20 and 35 for men and women of all racial groups. Black men and women, as well as American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, and Latino men have a much higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than their white counterparts. The highest risk, however, was among Black men who face a one in 1000 chance of being killed by police over their lifetime. Presently, police violence is the leading cause of death for young Black men in the United States.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2019; 116(34): 16793-16798.

By Desmond Ang and Jonathan Tebes

Roughly a thousand people are killed by American law enforcement officers each year, accounting for more than 5% of all homicides. We estimate the causal impact of these events on civic engagement. Exploiting hyper-local variation in how close residents live to a killing, we find that exposure to police violence leads to signicant increases in registrations and votes. These effects are driven entirely by Blacks and Hispanics and are largest for killings of unarmed individuals. We find corresponding increases in support for criminal justice reforms, suggesting that police violence may cause voters to politically mobilize against perceived injustice.

Working paper, Harvard University, 2022. .30p.

By Desmond Ang, Panka Bencsik, Jesse Bruhn§ and Ellora Derenoncourt

How do high-profile acts of police brutality affect public trust and cooperation with law enforcement? To investigate this question, we develop a new measure of civilian crime reporting that isolates changes in community engagement with police from underlying changes in crime: the ratio of police-related 911 calls to gunshots detected by ShotSpotter technology. Examining detailed data from eight major American cities, we show a sharp drop in both the call-to-shot ratio and 911 call volume immediately after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Notably, reporting rates decreased significantly in both non-white and white neighborhoods across the country. These effects persist for several months, and we find little evidence that they were reversed by the conviction of Floyd’s murderer. Together, the results illustrate how acts of police violence may destroy a key input into effective law enforcement and public safety: civilian engagement and reporting.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government,2021. 27p.

By Alex S. Vitale

The massive uprising that followed the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020— by some estimates the largest protests in US history—thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. That case had been put persuasively a few years earlier in The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, now a leading figure in the urgent public discussion over policing and racial justice.

The central problem, Vitale demonstrates, is the dramatic expansion of the police role over the last forty years. Drawing on firsthand research from across the globe, he shows how the implementation of alternatives to policing—such as drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs—has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice.

London; New York: Verso, 2017. 247p. (Updated in 2021)

By Desmond Ang and Jonathan Tebes

Roughly a thousand people are killed by American law enforcement officers each year, accounting for more than 5% of all homicides. We estimate the causal impact of these events on civic engagement. Exploiting hyper-local variation in how close residents live to a killing, we find that exposure to police violence leads to significant increases in registrations and votes. These effects are driven entirely by Blacks and Hispanics and are largest for killings of unarmed individuals. We find corresponding increases in support for criminal justice reforms, suggesting that police violence may cause voters to politically mobilize against perceived injustice.

Unpublished paper, 2021. 30p.

By Taeho Kim

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have received extensive attention as a key reform to restore police legitimacy. I study the causal effects of BWCs on law enforcement outcomes by conducting a nationwide study of BWCs across 947 agencies that adopted BWCs between 2014 and 2016 in the US. I find that BWCs led to decreases in the use of force but the increased oversight did not reduce crime control activities. By examining social media usage from Twitter, I also find suggestive evidence that BWC adoption has improved public opinion toward the police.

Unpublished paper, 2019. 84p.

By The International Association of Chiefs of Policy (IACP)

As part of our long-standing commitment to advancing the profession of law enforcement and the practice of policing, eleven leading law enforcement leadership and labor organizations continued their work to provide guidance to the law enforcement profession on de-escalation techniques, less-lethal force, and deadly force. The extensive work of the participating organizations resulted in the development of a companion Discussion Paper to supplement the Consensus Policy on Use of Force that was originally published in 2017 and updated in 2020. The combined document represents our collaborative efforts to advance the law enforcement profession, while upholding our commitment and duty to serve the public and preserve all human life. The National Consensus Discussion Paper on Use of Force is designed to provide essential background material and supporting documentation to promote greater understanding of the developmental philosophy and implementation guidelines for the Consensus Policy. Law agencies are encouraged to utilize the Discussion Paper and the information contained therein to better inform their decisions on whether to implement the various elements found in the Consensus Policy in their own agencies.

Alexandria, VA: IACP, 2020. 16p.