Cuyahoga County and The Cleveland Police Force: The Correlation between Income and the Use of Deadly...

Cuyahoga County and the Cleveland Police Force: The Correlation between Income and Use of Deadly Force

Cuyahoga County and The Cleveland Police Force: The Correlation between Income and the Use of Deadly Force

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Cleveland protestors block traffic demanding justice for Tamir Rice and other victims

Introduction

On November 22nd of 2014 12 year-old Tamir Brown was killed

by a Cleveland police officer for holding a BB gun at a local

park in Cleveland. The officer who fired the shots had been

previously let go from the suburban Independence Police Force for

“dangerous loss of composure during live range training and his

inability to manage this personal stress” (Barajas, 2014).

Cleveland City Councilman Jeffrey Johnson stated “there is

something fundamentally broken in our system when a young man can

have a legal BB gun, and by the end of that day be killed by a

Cleveland police officer” (Strochlic, 2014). A one-year

investigation by the Department of Justice into the Cleveland

Police Department concluded not too long after the Tamir Rice

incident. Attorney General Eric Holder explained at a press

conference “The thorough and independent review, which spanned

more than a year and a half, concluded that officers engaged in

unnecessary use of deadly force, including shootings and head

strikes, and used excessive force against people who were

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mentally ill and in crisis… some of the officers’ search and

seizures…violated the Fourth Amendment of the U.S.

Constitution. The department examined nearly 600 use-of-force

incidents that occurred between 2010 and 2013” (Richinik, 2014).

The objective of this study was to try and discover if this

deadly use of force was more likely to occur in low-income areas.

Due to lack of data on police shootings many have begun to crowd

source such data in an attempt to shine light on this national

problem. Utilizing crowd sourced data; information on income from

NEOCANDO, and geographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau,

along with violent crime rates in the Cleveland area, the study

concluded that income does have a correlation with a higher use

of deadly force by the Cleveland Police Department.

Similar Studies

Several studies have been conducted on race and police

violence. However, less has been conducted in regards to income.

In 1979 an empirical study was conducted to examine use of deadly

force and inequality. The study “found that the police were most

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likely to use deadly force in the most unequal states” (Britt &

Jacobs, 403). The large majority of other studies are focused on

race, such as Goldkamp’s study (1976) on minorities as victims of

police shootings. However, additional findings from Goldkamp’s

study did show “that the lowest income groups (regardless of

race) were the most highly victimized segments of society”

(Goldkamp, 169). Recent studies are hard to find suggesting that

much more research needs to be done on the subject. The location

from which the data was obtained, TheseAreWaters, did conduct a

study using the data. However, the majority of the study was

focused on demographics such as race and did not address income.

As the issue becomes more and more a national concern effective

solutions will require the insight offered by scientific

analysis. This study aims to analyze income as it relates to the

use of deadly force. The following map shows police shootings in

Cuyahoga County from 1999 to 2014.1

1 The recent use of deadly force on Tamir Rice on November 22nd isnot included in these maps or analysis.

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The geolocation of police shootings in Cuyahoga County

reveals a high concentration of shootings within the city of

Cleveland with few taking place in the outer suburbs. This

concentration was established further when selecting points

within the city of Cleveland. Analysis revealed that 31 out of 34

cases of deadly force that occurred within the county happened in

the city of Cleveland. In comparison to shootings across the

entire U.S. Cleveland comprised 2.7 percent of shootings.

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31 out of 34 cases of deadly force in Cuyahoga County occurred within the city of Cleveland. Since 1999, 31 out of 1144 cases in the U.S. occurred in the city of Cleveland.

The next step of the analysis was to map the median

household income in Cuyahoga County by census tract. The analysis

revealed that the majority of census tracts within the city of

Cleveland had an average median household income below $40,000.

The 2014 absolute poverty line for households with 3 people is

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$19,790. Areas below or near this income range are marked by the

dark red color on the map. The poverty line for households of 6

is $31,970. These areas are marked by yellow. The poverty line

for households of 8 is $ 40,090, areas below this income range

are marked by the bright green coloring on the map (Department of

Health and Human Services, 2014). Analysis of income ranges shows

that while the large majority of census tracts within the city of

Cleveland have median household incomes below $40,000 the outer

suburbs have majority income ranges between $40,000 to $100,000

dollars with approximately 16 census tracts with incomes above

$100,000.

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Dan Ficker protestors. Dan was shot and killed in Parma by a Clevelandpolice officer over accusations of petty theft.

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The next step was to overlay the police shootings with median

household income.

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Source: TheseAreWaters, 2014; NEOCANDO, 2006-2010

Analysis of the overlay and coinciding table above shows

significant correlations with income. Out of 34 cases more than half

(18) occurred in neighborhoods where the median household income was

below $30,000 a year. Less than one-third of all cases occurred in

neighborhoods with a median household income between $30,000 and

$40,000. The single case that occurred in the neighborhood with a

$50,000 plus annual household income was a high outlier. The incident

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occurred within a census tract with an annual household income of

approximately $111,000.

½ Mile buffer of shootings within the city of Cleveland selected.

31 total.

A ½ mile buffer around sites of deadly force reveals that

approximately 23 sites of deadly force occurred within at least a

½ mile of one other site. This could point to poor policing in

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certain communities or may occur as a result of increased crime

rates, assuming such shootings are justified. In consideration of

the commonly established causation of poverty to crime the

following map displays the number of cases of violent crimes per

100,000 residents by census tract. The following map displays

violent crime rates in the city of Cleveland.

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The majority of census tracts near sites of deadly force

contained higher rates of violent crime than census tracts near

the boundaries of the city of Cleveland. Approximately 21 deaths

occurred in communities with 1,001 – 4,000 violent crimes per

100,000 residents. The remaining 13 sites within the county were

dispersed among the remaining ranges.

Conclusions

This study aimed to understand such violence from a conflict

perspective. The findings of this study are that there is a

significant correlation between income and use of deadly force by

police. Further studies should be undertaken to discover if there

may be causation between the two variables. The concentration of

incidences in areas with less than $30,000 median household

income could indicate poorer training, relaxed hiring standards,

lack of oversight and/or racial and economic bias. Several other

studies on police violence have found race to be a critical

component. The absence of deadly force in high income and

suburban communities of Cuyahoga County suggests further that use

of deadly force has a class component. Additional studies

exploring the violent crime rates around these sites and details

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of the individual cases will help reveal how strong of a

relationship there is between violent crime rates and use of

deadly force in Cuyahoga County.

References

Barajas, J. (2014, December 4). Cleveland police officer who shot

Tamir Rice was unfit for duty years ago, records show. PBS

Newshour. Retrieved from

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/cleveland-police-office-

shot-tamir-rice-unfit-duty-years-ago-police-reports-show/

Duncan, M. (Photographer). (2014). Tamir’s family urged

protestors to remain calm during the investigation.

Retrieved December 6, 2014 from:

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tamir-rice-family-

question-cops-training-shooting-article-1.2025828

Goldkamp, J. S. (1976). Minoroties as victims of police

shootings: Interpretations of racial disproportionality and

police us of deadly force. Justice System Journal, 2(2), 169-183.

Jacobs, D., & Britt, D. (1979). Inequality and police use of

deadly force: An empirical assessment of a conflict

hypothesis. Social Problems, (4). 403-412.

[Justice for Dan Ficker Protestors Photograph]. Retrieved

December 6, 2014 from:

http://media.cleveland.com/parma/photo/kl4430126cjpg-

32b6f5357fd266e7.jpg

Maxwell, D. (Photographer). (2014). A Cleveland protester holds a

sign with a picture of Tamir Rice during a rally Nov. 24,

2014, on the city's Public Square. Retrieved December 6,

2014 from:

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/25/cleveland-

shot-boy/70081458/

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Richinick, M. (2014, December 4). Eric Holder: Cleveland police

engage in ‘excessive force’. MSNBC. Retrieved from

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/eric-holder-cleveland-police-

engage-excessive-force

Strochlic, N. (2014, November 25). The 14 teens killed by cops

since Michael Brown. The Daily Beast. Retrieved from

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/25/the-14-

teens-killed-by-cops-since-michael-brown.html

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2014). 2014

poverty guidelines. Office of The Assistant Secretary for

Planning and Evaluation. Retrieved from

http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/14poverty.cfm

Data References

Fatal Encounters & TheseAreWaters. (2014). Use of Deadly Force Latitude

and Longitude United States [Data file]. Retrieved from

http://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5p5Vo_V4WG_ekY5VGtORU1WQ00/

edit?pli=1

North East Ohio Community and Neighborhood Data for Organizing.

(2006-2010). Median Annual Household Income, 5 Year Estimate Cuyahoga

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County, Ohio [Data file]. Available from

http://neocando.case.edu/neocando/

North East Ohio Community and Neighborhood Data for Organizing.

(2011).

Violent Crime Rates per 100,000 residents Cleveland, Ohio [Data file].

Retrieved from http://neocando.case.edu/neocando/

United States Census Bureau. (2014). 2014 TIGER/Line Shapefiles: Census

Tracts, Ohio [Data file]. Available from

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles2014/layers.cgi

United States Census Bureau. (2014). Cuyahoga County, OH Roads

Shapefile [Data file]. Available from

http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-line.html

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