There has been a substantial body of research examining the reasons behind the police officers’ use of deadly force. Little research has been done to examine how race and ethnicity interact with other factors in the use of deadly force. With data collected in Dallas, Texas, the present study examines the influence of individual, situational, and neighborhood characteristics on officers’ decision to use deadly force. The present study also provides an alternative approach to logistic regression models by estimating predictive probabilities of officers shooting at citizens. The results show that when officers make decisions to shoot at citizens, situational factors are more important than demographic and neighborhood factors. Interactive effects constructed based on the race/ethnicity of the police officer and citizen showed almost no influence on the decision to shoot at a citizen. Finally, the present study concludes with a discussion of implications for policy development and future research.

有大量研究调查了警察使用致命武力的原因。很少有研究检查种族和种族在使用致命武力时如何与其他因素相互作用。利用在得克萨斯州达拉斯收集的数据，本研究检验了个人，处境和邻里特征对军官决定使用致命武力的影响。本研究还通过估计军官向平民开枪的预测概率，为逻辑回归模型提供了另一种方法。结果表明，当官员做出向平民开枪的决定时，情境因素比人口因素和邻里因素更为重要。根据警官和公民的种族/民族构建的互动效果几乎不会影响向公民开枪的决定。最后，本研究最后讨论了对政策制定和未来研究的影响。