Selective Transparency: LAPD Firearm Discharges, Press Releases, and the Construction of Police Violence Narratives, 2010–2023

• In Event: Crime, Law and Deviance Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 4: Criminal Justice System Actors (2)

Abstract

Public discourse surrounding police use of force, intensified by racialized patterns of violence, includes calls for greater police transparency and accountability. Agencies are not legally required to publicize whenever an officer fires a weapon, allowing police communication to frame officers as competent and under threat while minimizing reputational risk. Prior research shows that government data undercounts police killings and, open source media projects aim to provide more data on police fatalities.
I argue that we need to look beyond fatalities to consider reporting the full universe of police firearm discharges, including non-fatal shootings, animal shootings, and unintentional discharges. Selective coverage of these incidents limits awareness of police use of force and may contribute to uneven racial and spatial understandings of policing. To address this, I construct a dataset of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) press releases matched to internal summaries of firearm discharge incidents from 2010-2022. I explore two research questions: 1) how does press release coverage of police firearm discharges vary by the nature of the incident, suspect race, and location?; and 2) have these patterns changed over time?
Initial findings examined every other year during 2010-2022 indicate that over one third of police firearm discharge incidents (n = 362) are not reported in press releases. Coverage differs by the type of incident: nearly all fatal shootings (90%) and injurious incidents (87%) are reported in press releases, but only 30% of negligent discharges and 9% of animal shootings are publicized. These patterns are consistent with an approach of emphasizing events that reinforce officer skill and threat while concealing unnecessary force. Further analyses will consider racial, spatial, and temporal patterns in reporting. These preliminary results support the idea that press releases function as strategic instruments of legitimacy.

Author

• Stevon Felton, Cornell University