Civil unrest erupted throughout the United States following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. While most protests remained peaceful, some turned violent. Using publicly available sources, we assembled a database of the 31 known homicides associated with the protests and riots that occurred in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. Results from our descriptive analyses help shed light on the characteristics of the victims and perpetrators in these cases, as well as the nature of the homicide incidents and the civil unrest events during which they occurred. Although certain politicians and journalists depicted the homicides associated with these protests and riots in monolithic terms, the nature of these incidents varied widely. Therefore, theoretical explanations for these homicides, as well as public policy responses to them, must account for this heterogeneity.
AkkuşBPostmesTStroebeK, et al. (2019) Cultures of conflict: protests, violent repression, and community values. British Journal of Social Psychology59(1): 49–65.
2.
AlvarezABachmanRD (2020) Violence: The Enduring Problem. 4th edition. Sage.
BaileyAKTolnaySE (2015) Lynched: The Victims of Southern Mob Violence. University of North Carolina Press.
5.
BarberCAzraelDCohenA, et al. (2016) Homicides by police: comparing counts from the national violent death reporting system, vital statistics, and supplementary homicide reports. American Journal of Public Health106(5): 922–927.
6.
BauerPCBarberáPAckermannK, et al. (2017) Is the left-right scale a valid measure of ideology?Political Behavior39(3): 553–583.
7.
BlockRBlockCR (1992) Homicide syndromes and vulnerability: violence in Chicago community areas over 25 years. Studies on Crime & Crime Prevention1(1): 61–87.
8.
BlumerH (1995) Social movements. In: LymanSM (ed) Social Movements: Critiques, Concepts, Case-Studies. Palgrave Macmillan: 60–83.
9.
BrittDWAllenL (1988) Homicides and race riots. Journal of Community Psychology16(2): 119–131.
CampneyBMS (2019) Hostile Heartland: Racism, Repression, and Resistance in the Midwest. University of Illinois Press.
12.
CobbinaJEChaudhuriSRiosVM, et al. (2019) “I Will Be Out There Every Day Strong!” protest policing and future activism among Ferguson and Baltimore protesters. Sociological Forum34(2): 409–433.
13.
ComerBPIngramJR (2023) Comparing fatal encounters, mapping police violence, and Washington post fatal police shooting data from 2015–2019: a research note. Criminal Justice Review48(2): 249–261.
della PortaDMattoniA (2016) Social movements. In: MazzoleniG (ed) The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Wiley: 1496–1504.
16.
DrakulichKDenverM (2022) The partisans and the persuadables: public views of black lives matter and the 2020 protests. Perspectives on Politics20(4): 1191–1208.
17.
DroogendykLWrightSC (2014) Perceptions of interpersonal versus intergroup violence: the case of sexual assault. PLoS One9(11): e112365.
18.
DruryJReicherS (2000) Collective action and psychological change: the emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology39 Pt 4: 579–604.
EntmanRM (2007) Framing bias: media in the distribution of power. Journal of Communication57(1): 163–173.
21.
FreilichJDChermakSMConnellNM, et al. (2022) Using open-source data to better understand and respond to American school shootings: introducing and exploring the American School Shooting Study (TASSS). Journal of School Violence21(2): 93–118.
22.
GastilR (1971) Homicide and a regional culture of violence. American Sociological Review36(3): 412–427.
GerberMMGonzálezRCarvachoH, et al. (2018) On the justification of intergroup violence: the roles of procedural justice, police legitimacy, and group identity in attitudes toward violence among indigenous people. Psychology of Violence8(3): 379–389.
25.
GiljePA (1996) Rioting in America. Indiana University Press.
GrimshawAD (1969) Racial Violence in the United States. Aldine Publishing Company.
28.
GruenewaldJChermakSMPizarroJM (2013) Covering victims in the news: what makes minority homicides newsworthy?Justice Quarterly30(5): 755–783.
29.
GruenwaldJA (2013) Using open-source data to study bias homicide against homeless persons. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology2: 538–549.
30.
HackneyS (1969) Southern violence. The American Historical Review74(3): 906–925.
KishiRJonesS (2020) Demonstrations and Political Violence in America: New Data for Summer 2020. Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs.
40.
KlandermansBvan StekelenburgJ (2013) Social movements and the dynamics of collective action. In: HuddyLSearsDOLevyJS (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology. Oxford University Press: 774–811.
41.
KleinCReimannRQuintanaIO, et al. (2022) Attention and counter-framing in the black lives matter movement on Twitter. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications9(1): 367.
42.
KritzerHM (1977) Political protest and political violence: a nonrecursive causal model. Social Forces55(3): 630–640.
43.
LaFreeG (2018) Is Antifa a terrorist group?Society55: 248–252.
44.
LaFreeGDuganL (2007) Introducing the global terrorism database. Terrorism and Political Violence19(2): 181–204.
45.
LaFreeGGruenewaldJ (2018) The intersection of homicide, terrorism, and violent extremism. Homicide Studies22(1): 3–7.
46.
LantosDMolenberghsP (2021) The neuroscience of intergroup threat and violence. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews131: 77–87.
47.
LantzBFaulknerLM MillsJ (2024) A descriptive account of the nature and extent of transgender homicide in America, 2010 to 2021. Journal of Interpersonal Violence39(1-2): 341–368.
48.
LauckJKStockCM (2020) Finding the deeper conservatism of the American Midwest. In: LauckJKStockSM (eds) The Conservative Heartland. University Press of Kansas: 1–38.
MaguireER (2016) New directions in protest policing. Saint Louis University Public Law Review35(1): 67–109.
51.
MaguireER (2022) Policing rival protests. In: SchaferJMyersR (eds) Rethinking and Reforming American Policing: Leadership Challenges and Future Opportunities. Palgrave Macmillan: 289–309.
52.
MaguireER (2024) Vehicle-Pedestrian Collisions During Protests in the United States. Unpublished Manuscript, Public Safety Innovation Lab, Arizona State University.
53.
MaguireERGilesH (2022) Public expressions of empathy and sympathy by U.S. criminal justice officials after controversial police killings of African-Americans. Journal of Language and Social Psychology41(1): 49–75.
54.
MaguireEROakleyM (2020) Policing Protests: Lessons From the Occupy Movement, Ferguson & Beyond: A Guide for Police. Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.
55.
MaguireERBarakMCrossK, et al. (2018) Attitudes among Occupy DC participants about the use of violence against police. Policing and Society28(5): 526–540.
56.
MaguireERBarakMWellsW, et al. (2020) Attitudes towards the use of violence against police among Occupy Wall Street protesters. Policing14(4): 883–899.
57.
MaguireERTylerDHFKhadeN, et al. (2023) Crowd reactions to the police use of force at the 2017 Phoenix Trump rally. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law30(2): 223–235.
MessnerSF (1983) Regional and racial effects on the urban homicide rate: the subculture of violence revisited. American Journal of Sociology88(5): 997–1007.
62.
NelsonJL (2021) Imagined Audiences: How Journalists Perceive and Pursue the Public. Oxford University Press.
OstrowskiMS (2023) The ideological morphology of left–centre–right. Journal of Political Ideologies28(1): 1–15.
65.
ParkinWSGruenewaldJ (2017) Open-source data and the study of homicide. Journal of Interpersonal Violence32(18): 2693–2723.
66.
PizarroJM (2008) Reassessing the situational covariates of homicides: is there a need to disaggregate?Homicide Studies12(4): 323–349.
67.
PizarroJMHoltKPelletierKR (2019) An examination of the situated transactions of firearm homicides. Journal of Behavioral Medicine42(4): 613–625.
68.
RaleighCLinkeRHegreH, et al. (2010) Introducing ACLED: an armed conflict location and event dataset. Journal of Peace Research47(5): 651–660.
69.
ReicherSD (1984) The St. Pauls’ riot: an explanation of the limits of crowd action in terms of a social identity model. European Journal of Social Psychology14(1): 1–21.
70.
ReicherSStottCCroninP, et al. (2004) An integrated approach to crowd psychology and public order policing. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management27(4): 558–572.
71.
ReicherSStottCDruryJ, et al. (2007) Knowledge-based public order policing: principles and practice. Policing: Journal of Policy Practice1(4): 403–415.
72.
RenyTTNewmanBJ (2021) The opinion-mobilizing effect of social protest against police violence: evidence from the 2020 George Floyd protests. American Political Science Review115(4): 1499–1507.
73.
RhineB (1968) Kill or be killed? use of deadly force in the riot situation. California Law Review56(3): 829–877. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3479269
StottCRadburnM (2020) Understanding crowd conflict: social context, psychology and policing. Current Opinion in Psychology35: 76–80.
81.
StottCAdangOLivingstoneA, et al. (2007) Variability in the collective behaviour of England fans at Euro2004: ‘hooliganism’, public order policing and social change. European Journal of Social Psychology37: 75–100.
TylerDHBarakMMaguireER, et al. (2018) The effects of procedural injustice on the use of violence against police by Occupy Wall Street protesters. Police Practice and Research19(2): 138–152.
86.
van StekelenburgJKlandermansB (2017) Individuals in movements: a social psychology of contention. In: RoggebandCKlandermansB (eds) Handbook of Social Movements Across Disciplines. 2nd edition. Springer: 103–139.
87.
WahlströmM (2010) Producing spaces for representation: racist marches, counterdemonstrations, and public-order policing. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space28(5): 811–827.
88.
WangDJPiazzaA (2016) The use of disruptive tactics in protest as a trade-off: the role of social movement claims. Social Forces94(4): 1675–1710.
89.
Wisconsin v. Rittenhouse (2020) Kenosha County Circuit Court, Case # 2020CF000983.
