Amid Protests Over Police Shootings
of Black Men, Latinos Note a Disparity
The sheriff's deputies arrived at the home in San Antonio on a call that a woman had been injured in a domestic dispute. A bystander started recording a video as they pursued a shirtless man armed with a knife outside the home. Though taken from a distance, the video
seemed to show the 41-year-old man, Gilbert Flores, raising his arms as the deputies opened fire, killing him.
The video appeared on television, and local officials opened an investigation. But the case, which took place last year, has drawn limited national attention - a stark contrast with the fatal police shootings of black men in recent days in Louisiana and Minnesota, which have ignited protests and calls for reform around the country.
To some Latino advocates, it is just one example of how the killings of Latinos in encounters with the police do not generate the same level of scrutiny, outrage or discourse as the fatal shootings of blacks.
"Why isn't the community aggressively championing the victims of these crimes?" said Juan Cartagena, the president of LatinoJustice, a legal advocacy group, who sees parallels in the strained relationship many African-Americans and Latinos experience with law enforcement.
There is no federal clearinghouse that tracks all police-related killings, criminal justice researchers say, so it is difficult to quantify how many Latinos are killed in encounters with officers. That has left advocates to rely largely on anecdotal evidence. Even with jurisdictions that include Hispanic or Latino as an option in statistics, the numbers can be unreliable; it is not uncommon for people to be incorrectly classified as white or black.
"You don't know if the tick box is accurate or not," said Geoffrey P. Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina who researches police shootings and called the lack of a national database a "national embarrassment."
The death of a 35-year-old man in 2015 in Pasco, Wash., gunned down after throwing rocks at police officers,stirred the sizable immigrant population there. Some believed the killing, recorded on video, had the potential to become the "Ferguson moment" for Hispanics.
"There are plenty of high-profile incidents across the country that for one reason or another don't seem to get the same attention," said Eric Rodriguez, vice president for public policy at the National Council of La Raza.
"There's sufficient amount of concern and outrage about what's happening," he added. "This tension at the community level, it's palpable."
Activists and researchers say a range of factors, rooted in differences in history and culture, could explain why pockets of anger cropping up after cases involving Latinos have not grown to have a larger national impact. For one, Hispanic does not denote a race, but rather an ethnicity; the sprawling population of Hispanics has differing priorities, depending on region, nationality and citizenship status.
Also, Latino advocates say, they do not have the same level of organization as African-Americans to spread their concerns more widely. For instance, they say, there is no figure with as high a profile as the Rev. Al Sharpton, nor does religion play as big a role in activism among Hispanics. "The Catholic Church," Mr. Cartagena said, "really hasn't used that kind of messaging as a way to galvanize support."
For some, immigration is a more immediate, driving concern; a fear of confronting the authorities holds some back from being more vocal.
"They interact with that whole system in a very different way because they have even fewer rights," said Angelo Falcón, co-founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy. "You have a lot of Latinos who are living without papers, under the radar, who are abused by regular police as well."
But Mr. Cartagena expressed dismay at the idea that certain issues affect only certain groups of people - that police brutality is an African-American issue, or immigration a Latino concern. "We live similar experiences with respect to marginalization of our communities," he said. "For this to really move the dial, it has to be done in solidarity with everyone else."
Some in law enforcement acknowledge the tensions in their relationship with Latinos. Tina Nieto, a captain in the Los Angeles Police Department, said she has seen the police shift from being an "occupying force" in some neighborhoods to one that is more engaged with residents. And as a commanding officer, she has sought to overcome the lingering skepticism toward the police.
"There's a disconnect between what people believe sometimes and what the policing reality is," said Captain Nieto, the incoming national president of the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association. "Sometimes it doesn't look pretty, but if you work to establish open lines of communication, we can have that dialogue."
In the case of Mr. Flores in San Antonio, the Bexar County Sheriff's Department has pushed back against the notion that he had his hands up in surrender, despite what the video depicts. (Researchers have noted someshortcomings with video evidence.)
James Keith, a spokesman for the department, said Mr. Flores was moving toward the deputies when he was shot, and earlier, he had tried to attack the deputies. A grand jury declined to press criminal charges against the deputies who shot him, both of whom had Latino surnames.
The Orange County District Attorney's Office is investigating the death of Pedro Villanueva, the 19-year-old killed in California, which happened on July 3, just days before the shooting in Baton Rouge, La. California Highway Patrol officers followed Mr. Villanueva's red pickup truck in their unmarked vehicle for about 10 miles. They tried to pull him over, the authorities said, but he made a U-turn and drove in the direction of the officers, who opened fire.
"How would an innocent boy be killed like that?" David Sainz, Mr. Villanueva's brother, said in a phone interview from the family's Mexican restaurant in the San Fernando Valley. "He was such a good kid. He didn't have to be shot."
The district attorney and the highway patrol declined to comment.
In 2012, Genevieve Huizar's 25-year-old son, Manuel Diaz, was fatally shot by the police in Anaheim, a death that came during a spate of killings in the city that set off protests there. In the years since, Ms. Huizar has traveled across California protesting police-involved shootings. She helped found the Young Survivors Legacy Support Network, which organizes picnics and vigils for relatives who have lost loved ones.
On Wednesday night, almost four years to the day since her son's death, she is planning another vigil.
"All these lives matter," she said. "I believe it should be one movement to make the change for everybody."
A version of this article appears in print on July 15, 2016, on page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Latinos Seek More Public Scrutiny of Their Encounters With the Police. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|
