62 percent in new survey trust police to do what is right all or most of the time

Almost two-thirds of Americans said they trust U.S.-based police departments to do what’s right all or most of the time amid renewed calls for reform of U.S. policing, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

The poll, published on Thursday, found that 62 percent of respondents said they trust police to do what is right all or most of the time, while 36 percent of those surveyed said they trust police to do what is right some of the time or hardly ever. 

There was a stark differences in the responses among different races.

Seventy-two percent of white respondents said they trust police to do what is right all or most of the time, compared to 66 percent of Black respondents who said they trust police to do what is right either only some of the time or hardly ever.

Forty-nine percent of Hispanic respondents said they trust police to do what is right all or most of the time.

Among political party affiliations, 85 percent of Republican respondents said they trust with police to do what is right all or most of the time, compared to an even 49 percent split on the question among Democrats. Sixty-three percent of independent voters said they trust police to do what is right.

The poll comes as many prominent figures inside and outside of Congress have made a renewed push to pass police reform following the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died three days after being brutally beaten by five Memphis Police Department officers. 

Body camera footage of the incident, which occurred last month, showed the five police officers brutally beat Nichols for three minutes and left him on the ground without any medical attention for more than 20 minutes after.

The five Memphis police officers, who are all Black, were fired from their positions within the department and have been charged with second-degree murder and other offenses in relation to the incident.

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted from Feb. 9 to Feb. 14 with a total of 1,580 respondents participating in the survey. The poll’s margin or error was 2.5 percentage points.