Jarrod Doyle was relaxing with friends on July 5 when the hashtag #AltonSterling popped up on his Instagram feed. He tabbed over to Google to search the name. On Facebook, he found a graphic video of two police officers pinning Sterling to the ground before fatally shooting him in the chest and back six times.
After watching that video, the 23-year-old Atlanta resident realized his teeth and hands had been clenched the entire time.
“I was instantly angry. I just kind of get that — it’s like a rage. The rage you really can’t do anything about because you don’t know what the outcome is going to be. You’re just angry. You’re mad at everyone and everything,” Doyle told The Huffington Post.
As the hours passed, that anger turned into a feeling of helplessness and fear for his own life.
On July 7, Doyle was scrolling through Facebook when an autoplaying video of Philando Castile’s dying moments appeared in his feed. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond “Lavish” Williams, began recording the video on Facebook Live shortly after a police officer shot Castile during a traffic stop.
The cycle of rage, tension and fear started all over again.
“You never know when the next incident is going to be,” said Doyle, who is a black man himself. “You never know if you’re going to be that next case.”
At least 509 people have been shot and killed by police in the U.S. this year, according to a Washington Post database. More and more of those incidents are being captured on mobile phone videos, shot mostly by bystanders and then broadcast widely on social media and cable news.
That means, more and more of us are trying to decide whether to click “play” ? and trying to deal with our sorrow and despair afterward.
Research on the psychological effects of watching footage of police brutality is in the early stages. But medical health experts suggest there can be long-term implications ? especially for those, like Doyle, who are the same race as the people being beaten and shot.
That Could Be Me Or Mine
It’s normal to feel sadness, anger and despair after watching a violent video. Research suggests that repeated viewing of terrorism news coverage can lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, especially in people who are already prone to react physically to stress or have prior exposure to violence. Scholarship also shows that racism can have a traumatizing effect on its victims.
So it’s not too big a stop to think that all these police brutality videos may be especially damaging to the mental health of African-Americans.
“When you’re part of a stigmatized community, so much of your identity is tied up in that community,” explained Monnica Williams, a clinical psychologist and director of the Center for Mental Health Disparities at the University of Louisville. “And when you see other people like you who are being victimized, it makes you feel that the world’s not a safe place for people like you.”