Off-duty police officers kill Black men at a disproportionately higher rate than their white and Hispanic counterparts, according to a new study.
A Yale study published earlier this week in the journal Health Services Research found that 40 percent of victims of off-duty police killings from 2013 to 2021 were Black men, per theGrio. Of the 242 occurrences during that time, only 25.2 percent of the victims were white men and 11.2 percent were Hispanic men.
The majority of the victims were shot, and less than half allegedly were armed during the killings.
Emmanuella Asabor, the study’s principal author, noted that the behaviors of off-duty police officers are understudied.
“Due to the weapons allowances for off-duty police officers and that off-duty and even veteran police officers are imbued with a great degree of power to intervene, we felt that off-duty policing was worthy of investigation,” Asabor said.
Based on the findings, researchers suggested several regulations for off-duty cops including a rule requiring officers to put their service guns away after their shifts are over and a clear definition of when it is appropriate for them to step in.
“There needs to be clear, widespread guidance preferably at the federal level, on what types of situations call for off-duty officer intervention and how we can document those interventions after they happen,” Asabor said.
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