Despite what you may hear on right or left talk shows and what you may read in right and left blogs, the public is taking a more (here comes that dirty word) nuanced view of the causes of Baltimore unrest. The findings come in a new poll from the highly respected Pew Research Center:
The public sees a number of contributing factors for the outbreak of violence and unrest in Baltimore last week.
About six-in-ten (61%) say that “some people taking advantage of the situation to engage in criminal behavior” contributed a “great deal” to the unrest, while 56% say the same about tensions between the African-American community and the police.
However, majorities say all five factors mentioned in the survey – including anger over the death of Freddie Gray, poverty in some neighborhoods and the initial response by city officials – contributed at least a fair amount to the unrest.
And when it comes to the riots, Pew says, the poll ” finds relatively modest racial differences in opinions about the factors that contributed to the unrest in Baltimore.”
Two-thirds of whites (66%) and 54% of blacks say that people taking advantage of the situation to commit crimes contributed a great deal to the unrest. Blacks are more likely than whites to say that poverty is a major cause: 50% of blacks say this contributed a great deal to the turmoil, compared with 39% of whites.
Meanwhile, the numbers show that despite posts on some conservative websites and some Fox News commentators’ criticism, most feel the Baltimore police officers should indeed have been charged:
The survey finds that majorities of both whites and blacks say Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby made the right decision in bringing criminal charges against some Baltimore police officers, including a charge of second-degree murder against one of the officers.
Overall, 65% say the decision by the state’s attorney to charge the officers was right, while 16% see it as the wrong decision; 18% do not offer an opinion….
Nearly eight-in-ten blacks (78%) and 60% of whites say the decision to bring charges was right. There are sharp partisan differences in these views: 75% of Democrats, 71% of independents and 45% of Republicans express positive views of the decision to charge the six officers.
While the public generally supports the decision to charge the police officers, most Americans do not have a great deal of confidence into the ongoing investigations into Gray’s death.
Just 13% say they have a great deal of confidence into the investigations while 35% say they have a fair amount of confidence. About four-in-ten (44%) have little or no confidence in the investigations. However, the share expressing confidence in the investigations rose during the latter part of the survey period: 40% expressed a great deal or fair amount of confidence on April 30, while 50% expressed at least a fair amount of confidence from May 1-3, after the charges were announced.
And there are partisan differences in how Democrats and GOPers view the unrests’ causes:
About three-quarters of Republicans (76%) say that some people taking advantage of the situation to engage in criminal behavior contributed a great deal to the violence and unrest in Baltimore. For Republicans, no other factor comes close. Half (50%) say tensions between the police and black community contributed a great deal to the turmoil, and 48% say the same about anger over the death of Freddie Gray.
By contrast, majorities of Democrats say that tensions between the police and African-American community (63%), anger over the death of Freddie Gray (58%) and people taking advantage of the situation to commit crimes (54%) contributed a great deal to the unrest in Baltimore.
While nearly half of Democrats (48%) say poverty and lack of opportunities in some neighborhoods contributed a great deal to the unrest, just 30% of Republicans agree. Liberal Democrats are about twice as likely as conservative Republicans to say poverty in some neighborhoods contributed a great deal to the unrest (61% vs. 31%).
AND:
The new survey finds 65% saying it was the right decision to bring charges against the Baltimore police officers involved in the Freddie Gray case, while just 16% call it the wrong decision. Majorities of blacks (78%) and whites (60%) call it the right decision, though this view is more widely held among blacks than whites.
A December 2014 survey found that 57% of Americans said it was the wrong decision not to charge New York City police officers in the choking death of Eric Garner; far fewer (22%) said this was the right decision. Blacks overwhelmingly said the decision was wrong, by a 90%-2% margin. On balance, whites also said the decision was wrong by a 47%-28% margin.
There’s more so read the entire poll survey.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.