Poll: Serious Racial Divide In How People Perceive Police
By David Madden
WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. (CBS) - A newly released national poll from Monmouth University in New Jersey confirms what a lot of people have suspected: African Americans are less likely to trust their local police department than those of other races.
One-thousand adults were surveyed coast to coast a month ago, before tensions erupted in Baltimore. Poll director Patrick Murray suggests the racial divide is dramatic:
"In general, the majority of them say they're satisfied with their local police, it's at much lower numbers than white Americans or even Latinos."
Fifty-percent of African Americans are happy with their police, compared to two-thirds of Latinos and 78-percent of whites.
Thirty-eight-percent of blacks would report a case of harassment by a cop while 35-percent of Latinos would and 21-percent of whites surveyed.
And while 61-percent of whites and 56-percent of Hispanics support police use of military style equipment to quell a riot, only 34-percent of blacks would agree.
