POLICE KILLING OF BLACKS: Data for 2015, 2016, 2017, and first half of 2018

Todd Beer on March 1, 2018

Updated July 10, 2018

Data collected by the Washington Post on the use of lethal force by police officers since 2015 indicate that, relative to the portion of the population, Blacks are over-represented among all those killed by police under all circumstances. As is evident in Figure 1 below, (looking at the top blue bar) according to the US Census estimates, Blacks made up 13% of the population. However, in 2015 they accounted for 26% of those that were killed by police, in 2016, 24%, and in 2017, 23% of all those killed by police. In other words, Blacks were the victims of the lethal use of force by police at nearly twice their rate in the general population. Whites make up the plurality of victims of police use of lethal force (47% in 2017), BUT they also make the majority of the population (61% in 2018). For the first half of 2018, Blacks make up 20% of all those killed by police under all conditions. The “other” category for so far in 2018 is noticeably larger than previous years. Currently, 86% of this category is the result of no racial or ethnic category being listed. This may change as further details emerge in each case.

The incidents that drive the protests and organization of Black Lives Matter are largely focused on the police use of lethal force on unarmed blacks. Figure 2 below, shows the cumulative number of unarmed Blacks (no weapon of any kind) killed by police in from 2015 through half of 2018. While the number of unarmed Blacks killed by police dropped by half between 2015 and 2016, from 38 to 17, in 2017 and the trend so far in 2018 shows no sign of further decline. While lacking data-backed statistical analysis, it is no stretch to imagine that the Black Lives Matters protests contributed to the decline. The impact of protests likely drove police departments (in locales of protest or distant police departments wanting to avoid the same lethal errors) to adopt new policies seek out new training, or more widely distribute less lethal tools like Tasers.

In comparison to the number for Blacks illustrated in Figure 2 above, 25 Whites were unarmed when killed by police in 2017, down from 30 in 2015. Twelve unarmed Hispanics were killed by police in 2017, down from 19 in 2015.

As of the end of June 2018, of the 102 Black individuals killed by police, eleven were completely unarmed (11% of the Blacks killed by police). Fifteen of the 211 Whites killed by police were unarmed (7.1%). Of the 68 Hispanics killed by police so far in 2018, two were completely unarmed (3%). Blacks account for 38% of the unarmed citizens killed by police so far this year. That’s three times the percentage of Blacks in the US population. Whites account for 52%of the unarmed citizens killed by police so far this year and Hispanics 7%.

While someone confronted by police without any weapon certainly does not deserve to be killed by police gunfire, I would argue that even those with a weapon other than a gun, should be able to be apprehended by police without the use of lethal force. Police should have the training, skill, and expectation that an encounter, even with a non-cooperative or fleeing citizen, should be resolved by means other than lethal force. Unfortunately, as is evident in Figure 3 below, compared to Black victims with no weapon at all (as seen above in Figure 2), those with no gun that were killed by police show a less dramatic decline between 2015-2017. In 2015, 115 Blacks who had no gun on them (but may have had a knife, a pipe, or been driving a vehicle) were killed by police. In 2016, the number of victims under the same conditions was 88 and in 2017 it was 92. Through the end of June 2018, 49 Blacks that were killed by police this year had no gun. That’s 48% of the Blacks killed by police.

Figure 4 above shows the percentage of each race/ethnicity that was unarmed when killed by police from all of those killed by police by race/ethnicity. In other words, in 2015, of all the Whites killed by police, 6.04% were unarmed, in 2016 4.51% were unarmed, and in 2017, 5.69% were unarmed. In 2015, of all the Blacks killed by police, 14.67% were unarmed, in 2016 we see a significant drop to 7.30% that were unarmed when killed by police, and in 2017, 8.76% of Blacks killed by police were unarmed when killed. Of all the Blacks killed by police, a higher percentage of them are unarmed compared to Whites and Hispanics. While we see a decline from 2015, in 2017 Blacks were still 54% more likely to be unarmed when killed by police compared to Whites.

Teach well, it matters.

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. . .

Here is an attempt at documenting all the unarmed people of color killed by police from 1999-2014

Also, see some of my other related posts on this topic (click on the titles below to go to the full post):

. . .

A recent article on the predictors of Black Lives Matter protests. Click on the image to link to the full article.

. . .

“A review of the shootings of unarmed people shows that officers were reported to be under physical attack in about 40 percent of the cases. The remaining 60 percent involved a variety of circumstances, including individuals’ making provocative movements or verbal threats (31 percent) or fleeing, or being shot unintentionally or in undetermined circumstances, according to a review of news reports and video of the incidents. The news accounts cited in the Post database are typically summaries based on information provided by police at the time of each event.”

. . .

“Instead of making officers more accountable and transparent to the public, body cameras may be making officers and departments more powerful than they were before. … First, many officers are (either earnestly or conveniently) forgetting to activate their cameras when they’re supposed to. Take the case of Terrence Sterling, an unarmed 31-year-old black man who was fatally shot this month by local police officers in Washington, D.C., after his motorcycle crashed into their car. Contrary to District of Columbia policy, no officer at the scene activated their body camera until after the shooting. The city released footage of Sterling’s final moments this week—but that video begins more than a minute after shots were fired. …. The third threat is that many states have introduced or passed new laws that restrict public access to footage while preserving police access.”

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The federal government will soon require police departments and law enforcement agencies to report information on the deaths of any citizens when interacting with police – during a traffic stop, after arrest, in jail, etc. The data will be gathered quarterly and will hopefully address any the gaps in the data that others, like the Guardian above, have tried to fill.

The Washington Post also kept track of people killed by police in 2015 and they continue to do so in 2016. Their final count for 2015 was 990 people killed by police, compared to the Guardian’s count of 1,136 for the same period in the US. The lists will have to be analyzed more closely to determine the discrepancies between the lists. Similar to the Guardian, The Washington Post allows people to sort by race, gender, weapon (if any possessed by the victim), and age. However, they also allow for the sorting by any signs of mental illness of the victim and “threat level” that includes under attack, other and undetermined.

The Washington Post data for 2015 indicates that there were 38 unarmed Black people (compared to 32 unarmed Whites) killed by police in the US, the Guardian reports 79 unarmed Black people (compared to 103 unarmed Whites) killed by police.

. . .

And from earlier, this article explains why other national data is highly problematic, click on the image to link to the full article

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Also from last year, an article exploring the weakness in the FBI data on civilians killed by police. Click on the image to be linked to the full article.

. . .

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004859799/the-rise-of-body-cameras.html?action=click>ype=vhs&version=vhs-heading&module=vhs®ion=title-area

“With increasing use of police body cameras come new tests of transparency and trust. This half-hour documentary looks at the consequences for law enforcement and communities, from the rollout to the courtroom.”

. . .

Comments 73

Dr. Scott Speed — July 1, 2016

Thank you for this data. I'm going to be using it on my Race Haven Podcast. Race Haven is solution focused dialogue about race relations in America.

Lori campbell — July 7, 2016

Thank you so much for this. Really good example for how to teach statistics using real data.

Jeff Brown — July 7, 2016

Using your logic men are killed at an alarming rate compared to their proportion of the population(95% of victims vs about 49% of population). Where is the outcry? You'll then point out I am using the wrong denominator because men commit more crime, are more violent, and therefore are more likely to be confronted by police. Possible you got the other denominator incorrect? When is the appropriate denominator. It sure isn't percent of the general population.

Anonymous — July 7, 2016

I would be interested to see someone drill a little deeper into this dataset. In particular I think it would be worthwhile to look racial makeup of victims vs total population within a defined geographic location ie. City or neighborhood where the killing took place. The stats above would be more relevant if racial makeup was a normally distributed population across the nation. It seems to me that narrowing our area of interest (within reason) would remove some potential bias from the analysis.

Andrew — July 7, 2016

What is the breakdown of number of crimes REPORTED in black, white, hispanic etc neighborhoods.

Jahaa — July 8, 2016

THANK YOU! The next time someone says that African Americans are the only innocent ones getting gunned down by police I'll be sure to show them this!

Paul — July 8, 2016

I found this because in the wake of the killing of Philando Castile, somebody shared it on Facebook with the caption "Data doesn't lie." Data doesn't "lie" but it can easily be misinterpreted. I'm not a sociologist, statistician, or PhD, but I have some comments to offer.

The author's conclusion, based on the data, is "This data further solidifies the concerns and demands of the Black Lives Matters movement; there is a pattern of police using deadly force disproportionally on blacks that needs to be addressed by policy makers and police departments across the nation."

But that is an interpretation superimposed on the data; the data doesn't explicity say that, and is actually insufficient to support that claim. (Note that I am not saying the claim is false, only that the data as presented isn't enough to prove it.)

An equally valid interpretation, according to the author's methodology, is that "there is a pattern of police using deadly force disproportionally on MALES that needs to be addressed by policy makers and police departments across the nation". After all, the data show that "Most, 95.2%, of those killed by police in 2015 were men. The pie chart below shows that only 4.8% of the victims identified as anything other than male." That is a far greater disproportion than the racial breakdown.

So what gives? Obviously there must be some additional factor(s) not used in the correlation of the data. The author gives a hat tip to it. But he doesn't factor it in before reaching a conclusion. Among those killed by police - of any race, of any age, by any means - what were the circumstances? Was it during the commission or investigation of a crime? Did the victim resist? Did the officer happen upon the victim, or was he responding to a complaint? Was it sunny and clear, or dark of night? What was the race of the officer?

In these emotionally-charged times, please do not think I am trying to excuse unwarranted killings by police; they should be investigated and justice should be served. But faulty analysis - especially when presented as self-evident "data" - doesn't help the situation, it can only lead to the wrong solutions.

Dru Williams — July 8, 2016

Flawed. You need to show the crime rate in each category.

Jonathan Neufeldt — July 8, 2016

So, you are comparing people killed by cops in 2015 to population census data from 2014. Why not compare data from the same year? Are you sure there are more hispanic/latin americans than blacks in the US? I want to see the raw numbers, not just race/ethnicity proportions (i.e. percentages) of US population.

Sandra johnson — July 8, 2016

This data is meaningless without including statistics to address the percentage of each race committing crimes. If a particular race is

JJ — July 8, 2016

I looked at the article, but did not read the whole thing. Did I miss the stats on the percentage of violent crime committed by each of the listed ethnic groups compared to their percentage of the population?

C. Todd — July 8, 2016

now, show data about crime rate by race...you will get an answer for why the percentage is so high for black deaths...they simply cause more crime.

Dr Terri Friel — July 8, 2016

Nice work.

bly — July 8, 2016

Why are you comparing The Guardian's data to general demographics instead of those who have been approached by the police?

Patrick Harding — July 8, 2016

There are statistics on a vast array of scenarios here, but I was curious as to whether statistics are kept concerning the killing of police by people of different ethnic backgrounds. Could you steer me in the right direction?

Jamal Washington — July 8, 2016

Certain racial groups are charged with more crimes by our justice system and have frequent police encounters. How does this not weigh into this "exhaustive" study.

John Norvell — July 8, 2016

Unless, I'm missing something, if the object is to prove whether race matters in a lethal encounter with the police, the important data point is not the percentage of each ethnic/racial group in the the total population, but their representation in encounters with the police. That is, how many Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, etc. were stopped by police and not killed. I doubt that data is easy to come by. I'm pretty sure blacks have proportionally more encounters with police than Whites in the US (which may well indicate structural and direct racism among other factors), so this may account for at least some of the disproportion with respect to the total US population. No?

oldgoldtop — July 8, 2016

I disagree with the author's implication that the differing shooting rates is largely a result of police racial bias (as claimed by Black Lives Matter). Blacks, due to socio-economic reasons, have much higher rates of police interaction, due to the high crime areas so many find themselves living. (stemming from destructive gov programs IMO). This much higher interaction will lead to higher rates of violent encounters that result in police use of force. The perception of police oppression can further be expected to create a more hostile environment and result in further escalation of resistance. In fact if you consider arrest and incarceration rates by race, you would expect the death rate among blacks to be much higher.
Note again that nearly twice as many whites were killed as blacks.

Don Masselli — July 8, 2016

By limiting the data to race relative to percentage of population, this study ignores factors that may lead to quite different conclusions. The study shows that, "compared to their portion of the overall population, blacks are disproportionally the victims of lethal force by law enforcement officers, even when they are unarmed." What if the population figures were limited to the areas where most killings take place? If most law enforcement killings take place in inner cities and the population there is predominately black, then this might account for the increased percentage of black deaths.

What about population percentages relative to crimes? Are there more police shootings in areas with very high crime? Are blacks disproportionately represented in high crime areas, and therefore more likely to be victims of those shootings? And what percentage of the black killings were by black officers (and vice versa)?

By focusing solely on race versus general population, this study implies that police shootings are racially motivated. If other factors are considered a different picture may be presented. And if a distorted or incorrect cause for these killings is reached and accepted by the public and those in government, steps that are taken to correct this problem will not only be ineffective, they may worsen the problem.

Something has to be done, but basing policy and law on incomplete and potentially incorrect studies is not going to solve anything. The authors of this study should be looking at all the potential possibilities, rather than settling for the easy one.

I would hope that truth was more important.

Boomiois — July 8, 2016

Now, please, do a study on race and crime. The two go hand in hand. It is clear blacks are disproportionately the victims of lethal force but someone needs to answer the question of WHY. The answer is far more complicated than racism. The answer lies somewhere in a muddled concoction of history, fading racism, poverty, and crime. Before we can EFFECTIVELY address and resolve the problem, we as a nation need to understand the cause.

Edward zapala — July 9, 2016

Thanks for sharing this disturbing (but important) analysis), Todd. I had a read a similar piece recently (sorry, can no longer locate) that suggested the underlying racism if our society was more to blame (people of color were more likely to be living in high-crime areas, for example) then racism of police. Thoughts?

D — July 9, 2016

Where in your article did you mention that blacks comment a higher disproportionate amount of violent crime? Does that not explain why the police are many more times likely to confront Blacks than whites?

Rhonda — July 9, 2016

Wouldn't it be more accurate to compare the percentage killed against the number of interactions with police instead of overall population? The general population totals include ages 0->100, disabled or otherwise incapacitated, etc. A large portion of the population does not interact with law enforcement at all or only in situations of a benign nature. I believe it would be more accurate to look at the numbers involving situations where police became involved due to the probability of laws being broken, threats of violence, etc. What is the percentage of police involved situations that turn violent and/or deadly? What about the race of the officers, not just the suspects involved? These are the numbers that would truly reflect a problem with race by law enforcement.

Ron Gulch — July 9, 2016

Excellent article. Being in a technical field we always look to root causes to slice problems. I would expect Dr. Beer to dig deeper in to the causes of disparity found by race and not simply assume racism as the cause. Compare these numbers against the race of police officers involved; Perhaps a review of crime statistics by race as published by the FBI and marry the 2 data sources to build evidence based hypothesis before jumping to a conclusion. I have done this and have a hypothesis that police are not 'racist' because of society but because of personal experience on the job and have been conditioned subconsciously to have biases tied to the offenders race. Such that race becomes an intermediate marker as to the causal. In the high level data this presents itself as apparent racism by police , regardless of the race of the officer. Police have a very difficult role and should be given training to help individualize thier tactical response. On the other hand addresses causes of crime in specific populations at a root cause level would address the other side of this issue. Oversimplification doesn't help solve the issue.
Regards,

Show Me Skeptic — July 9, 2016

"If we lived in a society where one’s race had no impact, then we would expect to see the portion of each racial/ethnic group killed by police equal to that of the portion in the general population. "
The thesis is flawed. There are two critical stats that are missing in order for the thesis to hold:
1) the proportional rate of crime per group (more crime = more run ins with police)
2) the race of the shooting police officer.
The authors given data processing the old expression, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.

M. Treanor — July 9, 2016

As so many have said in replies, although not as directly as I will, this analysis of the data is misleading and is confounding our understanding of the situation. As a result, it is making everything worse. To repeat a point that was stated by a few, the prevalence of males in the list of "victims," by this same simple logic, would "prove" that the police hate men. The fact that the data cannot be normalized by several important but unrecorded factors is not justification for ignoring these factors. The author unwittingly escalates matters by encouraging all people of color to identify with violent criminals who confront police. This simple treatment combines with anecdotes of truly poor judgment by police to reaffirm a preconception that makes no sense: police everywhere hate black people.

FM — July 9, 2016

Would be good if you also added the perspective from a police officer. A Police Officer makes up 806k of the population and had 130 death while on the job. It certainaly is another perspective.

JK — July 9, 2016

It only makes sense to use the number of interactions with police as the denominator in this case, IF you assume that would be an unbiased sample. Which it's not. Profiling begins far before a person is killed. Profiling is part of the reason that blacks are killed at higher rates - because law enforcement believes that they are more dangerous from the start.

By the way, this is also the reason that men are killed more often than women. Law enforcement officers think men are more dangerous from the start - similar to the way they think black people are more dangerous. Obviously there's a bias there too. That doesn't invalidate the original claim - it's a separate but related issue.

Stephen Kliewer — July 10, 2016

So many of the responses above show that people still want to believe that those who were shot deserved it. In short, their presupposition, while accusing the article of having an underlying bias (which I think it does) is that more blacks are shot because more blacks (per percentage of the population) are involved in crimes and violence. I think we still really, really want to excuse a systematic problem because it doesn't line up with our view of what America is about. This is called denial. I think (I work in mental health) that there is such a thing as an addiction to power (think domestic violence), and that too many people are drawn to law enforcement with its guns and power, who have this addiction. The over use power because the use of power is a drug. This group needs to be weeded out. If they are not, they endanger all the good people who are part of the police community. And they endanger all of us. I think the disparity is significant. Some deviation in % can be explained away, but when the rate is double? However the most startling statistic is simply the raw number of American's killed by those charge to serve and protect. Open carry is making this number rise (a policeman will shoot quick with less provocation if the other has a gun, legally or not). But we must address the number of people killed, white, black, asian, hispanic...all

Kevin luttrell — July 10, 2016

The article does not take in to account that crime rates affect police

Casandra — July 10, 2016

Given the history of the US I'm sure there is racial bias in the way the law is enforced. But comparing deaths vs. % of general general population is simply insufficient to draw firm conclusions about racial bias. What about other contributing factors to the deaths? How many attempted arrests involved a struggle? How many deaths were related to reports of violence by the suspect? How many acts of violence against police are committed by each race? It's a complex topic, but to really figure out solutions and prevent people from dismissing the data, you have to conduct a more thorough analysis.

Veronica Billups — July 10, 2016

I see many are trying to edge in the criminality by race. I guess then, maybe it will go into educational and economical disparities and inequalities since we're still seeking to vilify blacks on the basis of supposed higher criminality. Nice try. Amass ALL the data since we got off the boats in stolen America and you'll still come out having to swallow the pill you run from.

Devin — July 11, 2016

Thank you for putting together this page, super comprehensive and much-needed. The only tweak I would make is to the column in the first table labeled "percentage of THOSE killed by police." It's not wrong, but it could be more clear to distinguish "those" since it can construed as "the percentage of people of ___ race that were killed by police with respect to the total number of people killed by police." -Or- "the percentage of ___ race that were killed by police." Obviously it's the first and not the latter because 50.1% of all white people weren't killed by police...However, the second is an interesting statistic as well that I was looking for, specifically, and the title of that column in that chart threw me off upon first glance...a minor critique for an otherwise excellent statistical study.

Rick — July 11, 2016

I must beg to differ with the professor. His data is skewed.
Where his numbers are flawed is he is comparing incidents with the general population. He fails to understand it must relate to the criminal population in contact with the police.
Until they do that these numbers will be flawed.

1 — July 11, 2016

Rachele — July 12, 2016

– FACT: Despite making up just 13% of the population, blacks commit around half of homicides in the United States. DOJ statistics show that between 1980 and 2008, blacks committed 52% of homicides, compared to 45% of homicides committed by whites.
More up to date FBI statistics tell a similar story. In 2013, black criminals carried out 38% of murders, compared to 31.1% for whites, again despite the fact that there are five times more white people in the U.S.
– FACT: From 2011 to 2013, 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black. This figure is three times higher than the 13% black population figure. When you account for the fact that black males aged 15-34, who account for around 3% of the population, are responsible for the vast majority of these crimes, the figures are even more staggering.
– FACT: Despite the fact that black people commit an equal or greater number of violent crimes than whites, whites are almost TWICE as likely to be killed by police officers.

William — July 13, 2016

It would great to see this data sorted by City/State/Region. In my area you do not hear of the Police killing any unarmed people and we do have several cities with poverty and large pubic housing complexes.

How many Police forces do things the right way and are there clusters of areas where excess force is used?

Donielle — July 15, 2016

Rachele: Capitalizing the word "fact" doesn't make the information factual. None of the statements are accurate. It looks like you blended an argument you've heard about disproportionality, with the actual commission of crimes. The major issue is inequities in sentencing and the use of plea deals with the most vulnerable communities in the US. For actual facts, see Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, she did really excellent work explaining these distinctions, and also several chapters of Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy discuss disproportionate sentencing in great detail.

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Tristen Sanchez — September 1, 2016

Okay blacks are 12-13% of the population but are responsible for 50% of all crime, so they do not get killed at a disproportionate rate of those who are white!

MICHAEL WESTBROOK — September 5, 2016

Certain racial groups are profile but thats profile I dont think the numbers are right

Joey — November 25, 2016

I find no flaw with your numbers, BUT, I just want to ask, when using this per capita analysis to make the comparison "fair", how come I never see it used to show why, out of homicides committed every year, ( forgive my lack of actual numbers ) that very similar numbers exist for the murders committed/ I believe it was 2015 that I had read those figures, and it was around 2,700 murders committed by BOTH races, they were within a few hundred of each other, and only 189 blacks were killed by whites, and 400 or so whites were killed by blacks, but why such a high number of murders by blacks on blacks "per capita"? They are such a small portion of the population, then why do they commit as many murders as whites?

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Paul Shipton — October 9, 2017

Who commits the most Crime? Allocation of LE resources suggest the greater LE representation should be in areas where the most crime is committed. Second the greater threat due to crime. Lastly, politically sensitive areas. Blacks represent the smaller minority of unarmed lethal force however, they represent the largest demographic of criminal expectation. Therefore it is more likely that an LE officer will expect a black to engage in crime, even deadly crime in an area known for crime and would be justifiably so. This is rational not emotional. Race should not be a factor in unarmed deaths of bystanders as they were not the intended target

Shawn Frakes — October 13, 2017

First I dislike the article quoting second hand statistics. Secondly the more interaction any racial group has with law enforcement the greater likelihood of a shooting incident occurring. The data and any conclusions need to reflect that.

Michael E Murphy — October 18, 2017

Blacks are 13.2% of the population according to the article but nowhere in the article did they shoe DOJ figures showing that blacks commit more than 50% of homicides in US as well as a disproportionately larger number of violent crimes. They are also often poor and do more likely to commit crimes involving violence like drugs, mugging sand murder. In my life I have been mugged three times - twice by blacks and once by Hispanics - no whites. This goes a long way to explaining the increases interaction with police and more violent interactions.

Chance McGerk — January 1, 2018

Nationwide, the Black Homicide Offender Rate soared under Barack Obama from 10.8 to 12.4 murders per 100,000.

That makes the black murder rate 9-times HIGHER than "white America".

In sewers like Baltimore and St. Louis, the murder rate is 40-times HIGHER than "white America".

Ron Apollo — January 11, 2018

Here is what everyone is missing.
1) in every chart more whites were killed by police. (period)
If more whites were killed how does that make blacks the most killed of everyone?
2) everyone is saying that the crimes committed by blacks is way higher than that of whites.
So black people have more run ins with the police.

NOW CHECK THIS OUT!! I
f white people have less run ins with the police and more whites are killed than blacks.
That means that whites are more likely to be killed not blacks.
Because if blacks say (for example) have twice as many run ins with police and have fewer deaths than whites.
The run in to death ratio is higher for whites.
It doesn't matter what bias you have if one group has more dead than the other the one with the most dead is the one with the most dead.
Simple as that!!
if I have a million dollars and you have one hundred. even if I have more than triple the amount of people in my family than you.
I still have more money than you.
and it doesn't matter if you see your family more often than I do.
if I have more I have more.
so more dead in one group does not ever make the group with less dead have more dead.
578 white people killed and 301 black people killed=779 people (humans)
that were basically murdered by police.

that is the issue!!
we wont get nothing solved if instead of addressing the fact that humans are being killed
we want to argue over who is getting killed the most
then we stay stuck trying to figure that out instead of coming together and finding a solution to how we prevent humans from being killed by police unnecessarily.
I think it is by design that these articles are written
because if you notice they first separate us by race
then they separate us by political party.
cause in this article there are articles saying the conservative logic on this issue and liberal this and conservative that.
it's all done to keep us chasing our tails and arguing over race and political party and never addressing the loss of human life.

it's called divide and conquer.
we need to unite and win or we will be arguing over what race gets killed more for another 10 years.
lets just stop the unnecessary killing of unarmed humans.
because if we just focus on that then less of every race will be killed
it only makes sense if we stop the killing less of every race will be killed.
the way I see it if 1,000 white people get killed and only 1 black person it is still 1,001 humans that should not have been killed and it doesn't matter who lost the most to the ones who lost someone they loved.
no unarmed human regardless of any other factor should be met with deadly force by a firearm. (unless the person is in the process of killing someone with their bear hands)
there's only one race and it's called human.

Derek How — January 16, 2018

Kind of interesting how nobody is addressing that elephant in the room ... that 'blacks' account for 27% of the victims .. but only account for 13% of the population ...
So .. why do blacks account for such a large amount of the country's crime?

Greg — February 25, 2018

Maybe the fact that 133 blacks shot other blacks LAST WEEK in an 8 square mile area of Chi can answer some of these questions.

Eric — March 23, 2018

Go back to police carrying only night sticks.

jimmy — May 14, 2018

Inner city american blacks are just dumb nasty animals, cant ignore what I see in documentaries on america, they dont hide it. Every dead one of them is another teenaged girl safe from rape, and teen boy safe from getting violently robbed. Think on that, chumps

Phillip Holbrook — May 24, 2018

This "report" is itself clearly biased. For example, when figures of those killed who were unarmed are given, the writer says the blacks and Hispanics were "completely unarmed." When unarmed whites are mention, the writer simply called them "unarmed" and omitted the adverb "completely." Is there another definition of unarmed than unarmed. Were the blacks and Hispanics more unarmed than the unarmed whites? It's a simple glaring inconsistency in the "facts" of this racist article.

Hassan Muhammad — June 3, 2018

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral:

The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a 30-second shootout between lawmen and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the Cowboys that took place at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. Wikipedia

Location: Tombstone, Arizona Territory, United States
Date: October 26, 1881
Total number of deaths: 3
Result: Virgil and Morgan wounded, Holliday grazed; Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton killed
Participants: Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, Ike Clanton, Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, Billy Clanton, Billy Claiborne

This Police Shooting in Arizona 1881 was understood when they fought against armed outlaws resisting arrest.

But, the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution concerning probable cause being required for search and seizure is too often ignored by Law Enforcement Officers. The Courts have not examined this fairly and justly on many occasions. This will result in more protests by the Community and less cooperation by the Public when Law Enforcement need help to solve crimes.

Police Shooting of unarmed civilians is illegal. They should pull-out a Notebook and Pen and question the person about their location and activity.

Issue respectful and courteous advice on where the person can receive Social or Financial help in the community.

If illegal activity has occurred, than issue a Traffic Ticket to appear in Court or call a Supervisor for assistance.

Exception, when a violent crime is in progress like a Bank Robbery, Store Robbery, Illegal Drug Sale, Attempted Rape or Sexual Assault or Sex Trade, Kidnapping, School Shooting, Gang Fight, etc...

Conclusion, in the 1960's in New York City there was a wonderful program called the Police Athletic League (PAL). Helping kids with different sports during the hot summer and issue many colorful team shirts for Basketball, Baseball, Football, Track and Field events. They would have Police volunteers organize teams in each neighborhood to play games and the winning teams receive trophies / medals. Police, Sherriff and Marshals across the United States are now experiencing negative Public Relations reports and this is not good for our country.

Cathie — July 27, 2018

The number one cause of police shootings is not racism. It has nothing to do with the color of one's skin at all in fact. It has nothing to do with percentages of race within the population, percentages of whose committing more crime. It has to do with one simple thing: compliance, or lack thereof. If you are compliant with a PO's commands 99% of the time you will walk away; you may go to jail or get a ticket, but you will walk away. The other 1% accounts for actually bad cops, of which there are fewer than we would like to believe for some odd reason.

Billie M — August 11, 2018

It is pertinent to look at the correlation of number of crimes committed/shot by police/%population. Blacks are 13% of the population committing 62% of the crime with 25% of total shot by police vs. whites that are 63% of the population committing 28% of the crime and yet are still 58% of those shot by police. The statistic I couldn't find was the actual % of blacks shot by police vs. the total number of crimes committed by blacks. Maybe I just missed it but I doubt that it's anywhere near 25% of all blacks charged with a crime anymore than 58% of all white people committing a crime are shot by police. Maybe all of the wannabe thugs should stay out of those situations by NOT COMMITTING A CRIME! Just a thought.