Police Shooting Widens Racial Gap

Last month’s fatal shooting of Devin Brown, a 13-year-old black youth, by a Los Angeles police officer has widened the racial gap in feelings about the police but has only moderately affected how the Police Department is viewed overall, according to a Los Angeles Times poll.

The LAPD remains popular among the city’s registered voters, with 59% saying they approve of the department’s performance and 34% saying they disapprove.

The approval rating is down from the comparable figure in a Times poll the week before the shooting. In that survey, 68% of registered voters said they approved of the department; 26% disapproved. But the decline in approval is far smaller than the department has experienced with other highly publicized incidents, such as the beating of Rodney G. King in 1991.

Blacks, who were far more negative about the Police Department than other Los Angeles voters before the shooting, are even more disapproving now. Among other voters, the general approval of the police exists despite a widespread feeling that they use force too often and in a racially discriminatory manner.

A majority of registered voters, 52%, said incidents of LAPD brutality were common; 42% disagreed. And pluralities of whites and Latinos, along with a large majority of blacks, said officers were “tougher on blacks” than on other residents. Among whites, 43% said officers were tougher on blacks and 40% said police treat everyone equally. Among Latinos, 36% said blacks received the toughest treatment; 32% said everyone was treated equally and 22% said Latinos were treated the toughest.

The gap between the attitudes of blacks and non-blacks toward the department was at a record before the Devin Brown shooting. It has expanded since.

In the poll taken before the shooting, 40% of black voters said they approved of the LAPD. That has fallen to 28%, with 65% saying they disapprove of the force.

According to police, Devin was in a stolen Toyota in South Los Angeles on Feb. 6 when the car ran a red light. Two officers gave chase, suspecting that the driver was drunk, the LAPD says.

After the car ran onto a curb and stopped, the patrol car pulled in behind the Toyota. Police said that the vehicle began backing into the cruiser and that one of the officers then fired 10 shots.

Although voters are polarized by race in their view of the police in general, their attitudes toward the shooting are somewhat less divided. A majority of Los Angeles voters, 56%, said the shooting was an overreaction by officers and 31% said the officers acted reasonably. Thirteen percent were unsure.

Four of five black voters and nearly two of three Latino voters saw an overreaction. Among whites, 45% said the officers overreacted and 38% said they reacted reasonably.

Similarly, a 53% majority of voters overall said police would have handled the incident differently “if Devin Brown had been a white teenager driving in a middle-class neighborhood.”

Again, white voters were the most closely divided, with 42% saying that a white teenager would have been treated differently and 45% saying that police would have handled the incident the same way. Black and Latino voters overwhelmingly said police would have handled the incident differently if a white teenager had been involved.

Those surveyed also said, by 48% to 27%, that they approved of Police Chief William J. Bratton’s handling of the shooting.

The poll, supervised by Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus, was conducted by telephone and surveyed 1,636 registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for that sample. The margin is larger for subgroups.

Jill Darling Richardson, associate director of the Times Poll, contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Police issues

Los Angeles mayoral candidates spin crime statistics different ways. The Devin Brown slaying appears to have hurt the Police Department’s public standing.

Voters respond:

Some results of Times Poll surveys:

Q: Do you approve or disapprove of the way William J. Bratton is handling his job as chief of police of Los Angeles?

All registered Whites Blacks Latinos Approve 63% 73% 42% 57% Disapprove 20 12 42 25 DonÕt know 17 15 16 18

Q: Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Los Angeles Police Department is handling its job?

Late (Now)All (Now) (Now) (Now) Jan.* registered Whites Blacks Latinos Approve 68% 59% 70% 28% 53% Disapprove 26 34 23 65 39 DonÕt know 6 7 7 7 8 * Before the Devin Brown slaying

Q: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Mayor James K. Hahn is handling the police shooting of Devin Brown?

All registered Whites Blacks Latinos Approve 36% 36% 29% 36% Disapprove 29 25 45 33 DonÕt know 35 39 26 31

Q: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Police Chief William J. Bratton is handling the police shooting of Devin Brown?

All registered Whites Blacks Latinos Approve 48% 57% 30% 42% Disapprove 27 21 49 30 DonÕt know 25 22 21 28

Q: Based on what you have heard or read, do you think the police would have handled the situation differently if Devin Brown had been a white teenager driving in a middle-class neighborhood, or would it have been handled the same way?

All registered Whites Blacks Latinos Handled differently 53% 42% 81% 61% Handled the same 34 45 10 27 DonÕt know 13 13 9 12

Times Poll results and analysis are also available at latimes.com/timespoll.

The Times Poll contacted 2,525 adults in the city of Los Angeles by telephone Feb. 21-27. Among them were 1,636 registered voters. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the city, and random digit dialing techniques allowed listed and unlisted numbers to be contacted. Multiple attempts were made to contact each number. Additional African American and Latino voters were contacted in separate random samples to allow more accurate analysis of their subgroups. Adults in the entire sample were weighted slightly to conform with their respective census proportions by sex, ethnicity, age, education, city region, and party registration. The margin of sampling error for registered voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points in either direction. For certain subgroups, the error margin may be somewhat higher. Poll results may also be affected by factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented. Although Asian voters were interviewed and are included as part of the overall results in this poll, they are too small a subgroup of the sample to be separately reported. Interviews in all samples were conducted in both English and Spanish. Interviews in the supplemental samples were conducted by Interviewing Service of America, Van Nuys.