A new study recently published by the Las Vegas Review Journal paints a horrible picture of the Las Vegas Police Department in their interaction with minorities, particularly African Americans. The study, which was conducted under the leadership of Phillip Atiba Goff, executive director of research for the UCLA-based Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity, was based on a survey of nearly two-thirds of the department’s cops and found that officers who felt least connected to the department were most likely to use severe force against blacks, but not Hispanics or whites.
Sheriff Doug Gillespie commissioned the report in 2009 after the department noticed an increase in officer-involved shootings.
Another investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice last year found that use-of-force policies were cumbersome and training inconsistent. The Justice Department’s 75 findings and recommendations included specialized training for officers in “fair and impartial policing.”
The new study, however, notes how officers’ negative feelings about blacks are associated with more severe uses of force, such as shootings. This supports the findings of the Justice Department, which last year using data collected by the Las Vegas Review-Journal investigation of police in Southern Nevada, found that seven out of 10 unarmed people shot by Las Vegas cops in five years were black.
And in 2001, Nevada attorney general’s office report on treatment of people during routine traffic stops showed that Las Vegas police handcuffed black motorists at a far higher rate than others.
