Over half of young blacks in US know a victim of police violence: Study

More than half of young African Americans have indicated that they or someone they know has been victimized by police violence or harassment, according to a new report.

About 55 percent of black millennials answered yes to the question "Have you or anyone you know experienced harassment or violence at the hands of the police?" according to a report by the University of Chicago released to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The information comes from the "Black Millennials in America" report issued by the Black Youth Project at the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago.

The study reflects vastly different opinions among black, Hispanic, Asian and white millennials when it comes to law enforcement, guns and the legal system in the United States.

African American millennials are also the most pessimistic about the US legal system, with only 27 percent agreeing with the statement that "the American legal system treats all groups fairly."

Only 38 percent of all millennials agreed that the US legal system is fair to minorities.

"We know that young blacks are more likely to be harassed by the police. We know that they are more likely to mistrust their encounters with the police," said Cathy Cohen, chair of the political science department at the University of Chicago and leader of the Black Youth Project. "But we also know from actually collecting data that a majority of them believe that police in their neighborhood are actually there to protect them, so I think it provides us with more complexity."

It's not surprising that young blacks and whites feel differently on these issues, given the different experiences the groups are reporting, said Jon Rogowski, an assistant political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

For example, white millennials don't report having to explain themselves to police, while black millennials report that officers stopped them simply to question them about what they were up to, he said.

"We see story after story about how this leads into a more combative situation which has escalated and led to, in some instances, tragic outcomes," said Rogowski, who co-authored the Black Millennials In America report.

"So the experiences that these different communities have had based on where they live and the kinds of policing procedures that are in place there, we would argue, lead to these different patterns," he added. 

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