A scientific analysis of police body camera footage shows that the first 45 words spoken by a police officer stopping a Black male motorist can make the encounter more likely to escalate to arrest, search, or handcuffing. 

Researchers analyzed video from 577 traffic stops involving Black men and found that in stops that result in escalation, officers are more likely to issue commands as their opening words to the driver and less likely to tell drivers the reason why they are being stopped. 

The researchers then showed footage from escalated and non-escalated stops to another group of Black men and found that after hearing only the officer’s initial words in escalated stops, the men experienced more negative emotion, assessed officers more negatively, worried more about force being used, and predicted worse outcomes.

The authors concluded that “car stops that end in escalated outcomes sometimes begin in an escalated fashion, with adverse effects for Black male drivers and, in turn, police–community relations.”

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on May 30, 2023.  The full study can be found here.  

To illustrate how the start of an encounter can lead quickly to escalation, the authors include a transcript of the initial police contact with George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

Numerous observers of the bodycam video from the killing of Jarrell Garris by Detective Steven Conn in New Rochelle on July 3, 2023, have commented on the contrast between the non-escalatory language used by the two female officers who initially approached Garris and the  escalatory actions of Detective Conn.  On the video, Detective Conn’s first words to Jarrell Garris were, “you’re under arrest.”