Situation vs. Context: Interactions among Looters in Civil Disturbances

• In Event: A New Look Into Public Disturbances

Abstract

How looters interact with each other inside of stores has not been explored based on video data until now. By applying Video Data Analysis, I examined roughly 4 hours of security camera footage from 15 looting cases that took place in the U.S. during the 2020 George Floyd protests. Contrary to popular views that often frame disturbance looting behavior as acts of individual opportunism, the results align with previous research and indicate that conduct among looters is strongly characterized by cooperation. However, could the cultural or political context of these cases have influenced the situational dynamics? Interactions among looters might differ (a) in a country with a different protest culture, and (b) during a civil disturbance that occurs in a right-wing political context. To investigate this, I obtained and compared approximately one hour of security camera footage from a store that was looted in the U.K. during the 2024 summer riots. Interestingly, the data reveals strikingly similar patterns of interaction and does not provide additional insights. This suggests that neither the cultural nor the political context is necessarily a relevant factor in shaping situational dynamics. Instead, cooperation appears to be an inherent characteristic of disturbance looting behavior across contexts.

Author

• Katarina Dacić, Universität Erfurt