Black Lives Matter Protests Led to Fewer Police Killings, More Murders: Study

During the five-year period of the study, reported murders rose by about 11.5 percent.

A man holds a Black Lives Matter sign as a police car burns in front of him during a protest over the Minneapolis death of George Floyd while in police custody, outside CNN Center in Atlanta on May 29, 2020. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

While police killings declined in the aftermath of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, a recent study found that there was a jump in homicides as police became “less proactive” due to worries about public perception and lawsuits.

The Sept. 14 study analyzed two major waves of BLM protests—those following the death of Michael Brown, from 2014 to 2015, and those following the death of George Floyd, from 2020 to 2021.