A new study conducted by Susan Olzak, an emerita professor of Sociology at Stanford University, examined Black Lives Matter protests' effect on police killings involving Black and Latino individuals. Olzak's research published by Time found that if 4,000 people joined a Black Lives Matter protest, particularly between 2014 to 2019, one less person was killed by the police. George Floyd's death by now-convicted police officer Derek Chauvin ignited a significant increase of protests against police brutality as reported by CNN. However, critics said that the protests brought more destruction, citing examples like the rallies held in Portland and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Olzak, however, set out to answer 'do protests lead to progressive change?' Her study revealed that in 170 cities between the year 2000 to 2019, protests directly influenced the decline in police killings of Black and Latino people, but not for white individuals. Olzak said that one rally in a specific city would...
