Bystanders and the Murder of George Floyd: Analyzing Bystander Intervention in the Course of a Police Killing
Mark Levine, Chris Walton, Richard Philpot, Tina Keil

TL;DR
The paper analyzes how bystanders reacted during George Floyd's murder, showing that their verbal strategies, especially assessments, could influence police behavior, though ultimately failed to prevent the killing.
Contribution
The study introduces a detailed microbehavioral analysis of bystander interventions during a police killing, highlighting the potential of assessment-based strategies to influence police actions.
Findings
Bystanders used 205 verbal interventions, primarily assessments, to address police actions during George Floyd's murder.
Assessment-based strategies were more likely to be acknowledged by police, offering brief opportunities to alter the lethal trajectory.
The failure to avert the killing was attributed to police inaction, not ineffective bystander interventions.
Abstract
Using a detailed transcription, obtained from body-camera, CCTV, and smartphone footage of the murder of George Floyd, we examine the behavior of bystanders as events unfolded. Analysis reveals 205 direct verbal bystander interventions comprised of five forms (declaratives, assessments, interrogatives, imperatives, insults). We also describe the key physical intervention strategies deployed by the bystanders. We show that bystanders prioritize interventions based on what they “know” (rather than asking questions or making demands). We suggest that this is because assessment-based strategies are less likely to be seen as a direct challenge to the power of the police and therefore have more chance of inducing constructive engagement. Although bystanders were ultimately unsuccessful in persuading the police to change course, we identify five moments in the action sequences where the…
Genes, proteins, chemicals, diseases, species, mutations and cell lines named across the full text — each resolved to its canonical identifier and authoritative record.
Click any figure to enlarge with its caption.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 8Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsTorture, Ethics, and Law · Gun Ownership and Violence Research
