From Protest Permits to Pepper Spray: Examining Repressive Police Response to Black Lives Matter Demonstrations
Date
2021-05-13
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
In summer 2020, the United States witnessed protests that began in Minneapolis in response to
the death of George Floyd and spread to cities across the world. Some police responded
positively to these demonstrations, while in other places, they responded with violence, making
mass arrests and using pepper spray or rubber bullets for crowd dispersal. This research
addresses the question, how and why does police response to protest vary? How do police tasked
with public order and citizen protection act when they themselves are the target of
demonstrations? Or, when demonstrators are protesting them? I draw on social movement
literature and theories of policing to explore the interactions between police and activist groups,
and how each group responds to the actions of the other. I propose a series of factors to predict
when police show up at protests and what kinds of action they take, including political
environment, protest tactics, and the physical, situational threat posed to police.
I locate these factors in three historical case studies, and I then examine them through statistical
analysis, using a dataset of nearly 12,000 protest events in the US from May 27 through August
26, 2020. I test ordered logistic regression models to determine the statistical significance of
factors of political environment and threat on police response. I find that the situational threat of
a demonstration has the most significant role in determining how police react. The threat of a
protest’s claim—whether it is pro-Black lives—greatly increases the likelihood that police will
respond with more repression. I illustrate these findings with a case study on the Denver Police
Department in Denver, CO and their disproportionately violent response. I conclude with
questions about the feasibility of police reform and the success of the Black Lives Matter
movement.
Description
Keywords
Black Lives Matter, Protest policing, Social movements