Hannity’s Dubious Claim About Studies Showing ‘No Systemic Racism in Policing’
Discussing the fallout from the death of Tyre Nichols, Fox News’ Sean Hannity said two academic studies found police officers are as or less likely to shoot Black suspects, showing, “There is no systemic racism in policing. It doesn’t exist.”
But that’s not what the studies say.
Although the second study cited by Hannity did not detect any racial differences when it came to police shootings, it did find racial differences — “sometimes quite large” — in nonlethal uses of force, such as striking a suspect with a baton. The author of the study wrote in the Wall Street Journal in June 2020 that his research “has been wrongly cited as evidence that there is no racism in policing.”
During his program on Jan. 30, Hannity railed against what he said was the media’s false narrative that the Nichols case was based in cultural racism. Nichols, who is Black, was pulled over on Jan. 7 by Memphis police who accused him of driving recklessly. Video shows that Nichols was beaten by officers after he attempted to flee on foot, and he died in the hospital three days later. Five former officers, who are all Black, have been charged with second-degree murder and other charges related to the incident.
