Since protesters rose up in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, over the police shooting of Michael Brown, cops in America have killed more than 2, people. It also includes killings that were potentially legally justified, and is likely missing some killings entirely. The project, similar to others maintained by the Guardian and Washington Post , is necessary due to a massive gap in the information we have about police shootings in America.
But a study by RTI International found that each agency misses nearly half of police killings in the US, and together they still miss more than one quarter. Fatal Encounters seeks to remedy our gap in knowledge as police shootings — and the vast racial disparities behind them — get more attention in the news.
In raw numbers, it is true that more white people are killed by police than any other race: About 50 percent of all victims of a known race are white, whereas white Americans make up about 62 percent of the US population.
But the numbers show black people are disproportionately likely to be killed. Although they make up about 13 percent of the US population, they make up 29 percent of Fatal Encounters' police shooting victims of a known race.
This is largely explained by differences in crime rates: Although men make up nearly half of the population, they made up about 73 percent of those arrested for all crimes and more than 85 percent of those arrested for murder and robbery in , according to FBI data. Children and adolescents are very unlikely to be the victims of police shootings. Although they make up nearly 23 percent of the population , they make up 2 percent of police shooting victims.
