A legal shot? Police Gun Violence and Individual Accountability in Miami

In light of police violence and injustice, criminologists tend to focus on masculine and violent police cultures, the lack of democratic oversight and on social processes of dehumanization. Yet much less attention, however, is given to the objects commonly used in violent and lethal police encounters: guns. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with police officers in Miami, I suggest that police officers tend to re-contextualize police gun violence in terms of individual liability and legal culpability-as a question of what constitutes a legal shot. While a legal framing might protect police officers from prosecution, the legal shot first and foremost enables state institutions to explain police brutality as incidents: as unintentional and exceptional outcomes of an otherwise warranted form of policing. Recognizing how the legal shot attunes our attention to individual misconduct and legal solutions to systemic and racialized police violence, I suggest, is an important step in exploring the possibilities to disarm the police, and to organize around the question of how to imagine and push for a more inclusive form of public safety.

Automated summary

Criminologists tend to focus on masculine and violent police cultures, lack of democratic oversight, and processes of dehumanization when studying police violence. However, this article highlights the lack of attention towards the weapons commonly used in violent encounters: guns. Through ethnographic research with Miami police officers, the author argues that police officers tend to re-contextualize gun violence in terms of individual liability and legal culpability. This legal framing allows state institutions to explain police brutality as unintended incidents, thereby justifying the otherwise warranted form of policing. Recognizing the role of the legal shot in focusing on individual misconduct and seeking legal solutions is an important step towards addressing systemic and racialized police violence and imagining a more inclusive form of public safety.