What Factors Influence an Officer’s Decision to Shoot? The Promise and Limitations of Using Public Data

Abstract

We analyze a set of 207 Dallas Police Department officer-involved shooting incidents in reference to 1,702 instances in which officers from the same agency drew their firearms but did not shoot at the suspect. We find that situational factors of whether the suspect was armed and whether an officer was injured were the best predictors of the decision to shoot. We also find that African Americans are less likely than Whites to be shot. It is important to collect data on encounters in which weapons are and are not discharged. Analyses examining only shootings is fundamentally limited in assessing racial bias.