Hispanic police officers tend to agree with White police officers in thinking that recent fatal shootings of Blacks by the police are isolated incidents that do not represent a larger racial problem.
Quite the opposite is true when asked about the changing emphasis on immigration enforcement, where Hispanic officers’ viewpoints tend to differ from White officers and agree with Black police officers’ views.
In an online article by Gustavo Lopez for the Pew Research Center, a survey shows that 72 percent of Hispanic officers and 72 percent of White officers alike do not believe that police-involved shooting deaths of Blacks are a sign of serious racism within law enforcement. In contrast, 57 percent of Black police officers see these shooting incidents as signs of a much larger racial problem.
When asked to share their views on the protests following these shootings, less than half of Latino officers — 42 percent, and only 27 percent of White officers — believe that a genuine desire to hold police accountable is the underlying motivation for the protesters. On the other hand, a majority of Black officers — 69 percent — view the protests as motivated by a sincere interest in reforming police accountability.
Hispanic and Black police officers, however, do tend to agree that it is not their job to pursue and detain undocumented immigrants. Over half of those surveyed — 60 percent of Latino officers and 64 percent of Black officers — feel that identifying illegal immigrants should be left in the hands of federal authorities.
The majority of White police officers, however — 59 percent — said that local law enforcement should take an active role in the identification of undocumented immigrants.
Hispanics are the most rapidly growing racial or ethnic group within local police departments in the United States. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hispanic police made up 12 percent of full-time sworn officers in 2013, which is up seven percentage points since the 1980s.
By the numbers, Latinos are still underrepresented compared to their relative share of the U.S. population. Black police officers have gained parity and appear to represent equally the Black share of the population.