Neighborhood Immigrant Concentration, Race, and Police Shootings: The Case of Los Angeles, California, 2010 to 2016

We merge publicly available data from the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and the American Community Survey to examine how violence, racial demographics, and immigration structure police shootings at the neighborhood level. Consistent with community violence perspectives, longitudinal analyses reveal that police shootings are more likely to occur as neighborhoods’ violent crime rates increase over time. Additionally, we find that immigrant concentration is positively associated with police shootings, even after accounting for levels of violence and other relevant factors. The results suggest that anti-immigrant stereotypes may permeate law enforcement organizations, shape officers’ perceptions of safety, and engender police violence. Overall, our study assesses the extent to which local communities in Los Angeles were disproportionately exposed to the state’s use of lethal force and reveals the macro-level correlates of police shootings with a longitudinal research design.