"Only about a third of blacks but roughly three-quarters of whites say police in their communities do an excellent or good job in using the appropriate force on suspects, treating all racial and ethnic minorities equally and holding officers accountable when misconduct occurs. Roughly half of all blacks say local police do an excellent or good job combating crime – a view held by about eight-in-ten whites.
Blacks and whites also differ over the root causes of the fatal incidents between police and blacks in recent years. Even before the recent lethal encounters between police and black men in Tulsa and Charlotte, the survey found that blacks are 25 percentage points more likely than whites to say the deaths of blacks during encounters with police in recent years are signs of a broader societal problem and not merely isolated incidents.
At the same time, whites and blacks both see the complexity of the situation. Majorities of each race say that both anti-police bias and a genuine desire to hold officers accountable for their actions play a part in fueling the protests that have often followed these fatal incidents, though whites are more skeptical than blacks about the demonstrators’ motives. There is less agreement on which is the more important motivator: For whites, it is anti-police bias (85% vs. 63% who see a sincere desire to promote accountability); for blacks it’s reversed (79% of blacks cite accountability, 56% opposition to the police)..."