The public opinion against police brutality and the Black Live Matter movement significantly dropped amid continuing nationwide protests.
According to the recent poll conducted by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs, 39% of the participants expressed their approval of the demonstrations.
Last June, 54% of the public expressed their support of the protests, which started earlier this year for the death of George Floyd in the hands of four Minneapolis officers.
The support for protests from black Americans dropped from 81% in June to 18%, while the support from white Americans dropped fron 53% to 34%.
The poll, in which 1,108 American adults participated, was done online and by telephone interviews.
It found that the perception of the protests have become unpleasant, and 30% of the participants view the demonstrations as “mostly or always violent.”
University of Michigan political scientist Christian Davenport labeled the findings as “compassion fatigue”, as outrage over violent acts involving police officers has faded.
The polls also brought to light the stark partisan divide among Americans, showing that 52% of white Democrats view the protests as mostly “peaceful”, while 53% Republicans say that the protests are mostly “violent.”
The opinion about the police has also shifted in the past few months, wherein 14% of the respondents say that the police have been treated by the justice system “too harshly”, compared to 6% last June.
Meanwhile, 52% of the respondents say that the police have been treated “too leniently”, a drop from 65%.
In another survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, wherein 10,093 Americans participated, the support for the Black Lives Matter movement dropped from 67% in June to 55% in September.
In just three months, those who “strongly support” the movement dropped from 38% to 29%.
The findings come amid fresh protests following the indictment of one police officer involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.