Fairfax County Police use force against Black and white people at similarly high and disproportionate rates, according to a study presented to county officials Tuesday.

The University of Texas research study looked at 1,360 use of force cases between 2016 and 2018. The county police had 576 use of force incidents against Black people, 519 against white people, 28 against Hispanic people, and 45 against Asian people. The county is more than 60% white, 10% Black, 20% Asian, and 16% Hispanic, according to survey data. The researchers compared use of force incidents against six categories of police interaction including suspects of crimes, violent criminal suspects with and without weapons, people arrested for crimes, and people who resisted arrest.

Use of force against white people was disproportionate to their representation in all benchmarks, while use of force against Black people was disproportionate to their representation in four of the benchmarks. However, Black people were more likely to experience use of force while being arrested.

“It’s unfortunate and also not atypical at all to find overrepresentation of African Americans across a variety of analyses in police outcomes, whether it’s force or any other outcome, that’s not an uncommon finding…I was surprised by the white finding,” Michael Smith, the lead researcher, told members of the county’s board of supervisors. “Black civilians were at greater risk for having force used against them, all other things being equal in arrest situations.”

The study also shows that the disproportional use of force on Black people was targeted around three police stations in Mt. Vernon, Franconia and West Springfield. Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck said those results were “deeply concerning.”

County officials commissioned the study because of long-standing racial disparities in use of force by police. In a 2020 county police report, 34% of the people subjected to force by police were Black, but Black people only make up 10% of the population.

According to The Washington Post, some community groups that track use of force in policing took issue with the methodology of the report saying “using arrest rates as a benchmark is problematic because those often show racial disparities as well.”

But, Karen Campblin, president of the county’s chapter of the NAACP, said the findings were troubling.

“This report and every report continues to show Black civilians were more likely to experience force in amount as well as severity. These findings are not new,” Campblin told the Post. “There’s still a lot that needs to be done.”

The study’s recommendations include collecting all instances of use of force and resistance, redefining the use of force threshold to include any significant physical contact, conducting training for officers to make sure they’re following the use of force policy, and rotating officers regularly out of high-crime areas.

Police Chief Kevin Davis told the Post in a statement that the report’s recommendations “will serve as a roadmap to help ensure that we continue to train, mentor and lead our police officers with an eye towards constitutional and community-driven policing, predicated on fairness, trust and respect.”