The Denver Police Department is relying on a social psychologist associated with theories on “racism without racists” for advice on whether it is doing everything possible to rid itself of racial and gender bias.
The city’s police have been accused in the past of using excessive force against minority people, notably in the wake of a shooting death of a mentally disabled African American youth in 2003. The city agreed last month to pay $885,000 to a 16-year-old Latino youth who complained that a white officer repeatedly jumped on his back. An officer was suspended without pay after the incident and charged with a felony of first-degree assault causing serious bodily injury but has denied the allegations.
Police Chief Gerry Whitman commissioned the study by Phillip Goff, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, who is known as an expert in what some scholars are calling “racism without racists."
