The psychology of police bias and violence

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-the-lines/201204/studies-unconscious-bias-racism-not-always-racists

http://rt.com/usa/217239-black-police-racial-profiling/

These were some interesting stories about detrimental police psychology and practices.

Phillip Goff from UCLA studied a sampling of police deadly force incidents (not sure the date range and selection criteria), and over 80% of those incidents involved the shooting victim making direct "threats to the officer's masculinity." So it wasn't just a disrespect for his authority ("F you, pig!"), but a challenge to his manhood. In the case of Ferguson, it was alleged that Brown told Wilson, "You're too much of a [pansy/fag/etc.] to shoot me." If true, obviously that was a bad move on Brown's part, but also reveals the dangerous attitude that some officers feel the need to demonstrate their toughness/masculinity/etc. to the public (like Marty McFly when he's called "chicken"). This is not Tombstone where gunfighters call each other out to defend their names and settle scores in the street. The bigger man is sometime the one who doesn't respond, and cooler heads need to prevail (not to mention cops are legally bound by certain restraints, though it's very hard to prosecute excessive force). Cadets and officers who display this inferiority complex, insecurity, and prideful behavior should never be permitted to have a badge and gun.

This part is a little fluffy - but this behavior could reflect the stereotypical white-black male tensions of more racist eras: white men may feel especially threatened by black strength, black genitalia, black revenge for slavery, black men taking their white women away, etc. Again, this is not evidence-based and mostly the domain of racial humor, but I think these fearful undercurrents may still be alive in the American psyche. How much of an effect they have on police actions is unclear.

Also, incidents of police-on-police violence were also studied. In cases where an on-duty officer shoots an off-duty plain-clothed officer, the victims are overwhelmingly black/brown and the shooters are overwhelmingly white. Sorry that is so vague; Reuters got the data from a police internal study, but did not provide the #s. So it's not just a cops vs. civilians thing - cops are killing each other and it seems that race is a major factor associated with the decision to shoot. Much more numerous than shootings are of course the racial profiling for routing traffic stops, stop-and-frisk, harassment, etc. Again, this is much more of a problem for plain-clothed minority officers than white officers. And these incidents may lead to tempers flaring and a violent incident.