Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 1,173 civilians having been shot, 248 of whom were Black, as of December 2024. In 2023, there were 1,164 fatal police shootings. Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 6.1 fatal shootings per million of the population per year between 2015 and 2024. Police brutality in the U.S. In recent years, particularly since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, police brutality has become a hot button issue in the United States. The number of homicides committed by police in the United States is often compared to those in countries such as England, where the number is significantly lower. Black Lives Matter The Black Lives Matter Movement, formed in 2013, has been a vocal part of the movement against police brutality in the U.S. by organizing “die-ins”, marches, and demonstrations in response to the killings of black men and women by police. While Black Lives Matter has become a controversial movement within the U.S., it has brought more attention to the number and frequency of police shootings of civilians.

As of November 17, 277 Black people were killed by the police in the United States in 2024. This compares to 201 Hispanic people and 445 white people. The rate of police shootings of Black Americans is much higher than any other ethnicity, at 6.2 per million people. This rate stands at 2.8 per million for Hispanic people and 2.4 per million for white people.

The rate of fatal police shootings in the United States shows large differences based on ethnicity. Among Black Americans, the rate of fatal police shootings between 2015 and December 2024 stood at 6.1 per million of the population per year, while for white Americans, the rate stood at 2.4 fatal police shootings per million of the population per year. Police brutality in the United States Police brutality is a major issue in the United States, but recently saw a spike in online awareness and protests following the murder of George Floyd, an African American who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Just a few months before, Breonna Taylor was fatally shot in her apartment when Louisville police officers forced entry into her apartment. Despite the repeated fatal police shootings across the country, police accountability has not been adequate according to many Americans. A majority of Black Americans thought that police officers were not held accountable for their misconduct, while less than half of White Americans thought the same. Political opinions Not only are there differences in opinion between ethnicities on police brutality, but there are also major differences between political parties. A majority of Democrats in the United States thought that police officers were not held accountable for their misconduct, while a majority of Republicans that they were held accountable. Despite opposing views on police accountability, both Democrats and Republicans agree that police should be required to be trained in nonviolent alternatives to deadly force.

The killing of Tyre Nichols in January 2023 by Memphis Police Officers has reignited debates about police brutality in the United States. Between 2013 and 2024, over 1,000 people have been killed by police every year. Some of the most infamous examples include the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and the shooting of Breonna Taylor earlier that year. Within the provided time period, the most people killed by police in the United States was in 2024, at 1,375 people. Police Violence in the U.S. Police violence is defined as any instance where a police officer’s use of force results in a civilian’s death, regardless of whether it is considered justified by the law. While many people killed by police in the U.S. were shot, other causes of death have included tasers, vehicles, and physical restraints or beatings. In the United States, the rate of police shootings is much higher for Black Americans than it is for any other ethnicity, and recent incidents of police killing unarmed Black men and women in the United States have led to widespread protests against police brutality, particularly towards communities of color. America’s Persistent Police Problem Despite increasing visibility surrounding police violence in recent years, police killings have continued to occur in the United States at a consistently high rate. In comparison to other countries, police in the U.S. have killed people at a rate three times higher than police in Canada and 60 times the rate of police in England. While U.S. police have killed people in almost all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, New Mexico was reported to have the highest rate of people killed by the police in the United States, with 8.03 people per million inhabitants killed by police.

As of December 31, the U.S. police shot 1,173 people to death in 2024. In 2023, 1,164 people were shot to death by police in the United States. Police treatment Since as early as the 18th century, police brutality has been a significant issue in the United States. Black Americans have been especially marginalized by police officers, as they have faced higher rates of fatal police shootings compared to other ethnicities. Disparities also exist in perceptions of police treatment depending on ethnicity. A majority of Black Americans think that Black and White people do not receive equal police treatment, while more than half of White and Hispanic Americans think the same. Police reform The upsurge in Black Lives Matter protests in response to the killing of Black Americans as a result of police brutality has created a call for police reform. In 2019, it was found that police killings decreased by a quarter in police departments that implemented a policy that requires officers to use all other means before shooting. Since the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, 21 states, including New York and California, have passed bills that focused on police supervision.

A geographically-resolved, multi-level Bayesian model is used to analyze the data presented in the U.S. Police-Shooting Database (USPSD) in order to investigate the extent of racial bias in the shooting of American civilians by police officers in recent years. In contrast to previous work that relied on the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide Reports that were constructed from self-reported cases of police-involved homicide, this data set is less likely to be biased by police reporting practices. County-specific relative risk outcomes of being shot by police are estimated as a function of the interaction of: 1) whether suspects/civilians were armed or unarmed, and 2) the race/ethnicity of the suspects/civilians. The results provide evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being {black, unarmed, and shot by police} is about 3.49 times the probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} on average. Furthermore, the results of multi-level modeling show that there exists significant heterogeneity across counties in the extent of racial bias in police shootings, with some counties showing relative risk ratios of 20 to 1 or more. Finally, analysis of police shooting data as a function of county-level predictors suggests that racial bias in police shootings is most likely to emerge in police departments in larger metropolitan counties with low median incomes and a sizable portion of black residents, especially when there is high financial inequality in that county. There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates.

As of October 22, police in the United States had shot 23 unarmed people to death in 2024. The most common weapon for a victim of a fatal police shooting to be carrying is a gun. In 2023, 717 people carrying a gun were shot and killed by the U.S. police.

In the United States, more men than women are shot to death by the police. As of October 22, the U.S. police shot 904 men and 44 women to death in 2024. In 2023, the police shot 1,107 men and 48 women to death.

Field descriptions:

Note regarding income calculations:

All income fields are in inflation-adjusted 2013 dollars.

comp_income is simply tract-level median household income as a share of county-level median household income.

county_bucket provides where the tract's median household income falls in the distribution (by quintile) of all tracts in the county. (1 indicates a tract falls in the poorest 20% of tracts within the county.) Distribution is not weighted by population.

nat_bucket is the same but for all U.S. counties.

Values are: posterior mean (posterior standard deviation) of the regression coefficients. The symbol log referes to the natural logarithm. Pop refers to absolute population size. Pct. B. refers to the percentage of the county population that is black. Md. In. refers to median income. Gini refers to the Gini index of inequality. GRP refers to the Google search racism proxy. W. Ast and B. Ast refer to the white- and black-specific arrest rates for assualt, respectively. W. Wps and B. Wps refer to the white- and black-specific arrest rates for weapons violations, respectively. Posterior probabilty that a postive regression coeffcient is less than zero (or a negative one greater than zero) is coded as: * indicates a probability between 0.10 and 0.05, ** indicates a probability between 0.05 and 0.01, and *** indicates a probability of 0.01 or less.

This page includes replication code and data for Bor et al "Police killings and their spillover effects on the mental health of black Americans: a population-based, quasi-experimental study" published in the Lancet. The data and code will be provided to coincide with the publication of the print version of the paper.

Number, percentage and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, by racialized identity group (total, by racialized identity group; racialized identity group; South Asian; Chinese; Black; Filipino; Arab; Latin American; Southeast Asian; West Asian; Korean; Japanese; other racialized identity group; multiple racialized identity; racialized identity, but racialized identity group is unknown; rest of the population; unknown racialized identity group), gender (all genders; male; female; gender unknown) and region (Canada; Atlantic region; Quebec; Ontario; Prairies region; British Columbia; territories), 2019 to 2024.

Multivariable negative binomial regression of municipal and county-level police killing rates on 2013 LEMAS policies by agencies in The Counted during 2015–2016, counts by all and race-specific killings.

Distribution of 2013 LEMAS policies among agencies involved in all and race-specific police killings in The Counted during 2015–2016.

Following racially charged events, individuals often diverge in perceptions of what happened and how justice should be served. Examining data gathered shortly after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri alongside reactions to a novel officer-involved shooting, we unpack the processes by which racial divisions emerge. Even in a controlled information environment, White Americans preferred information that supported claims of a justified shooting. Conversely, Black Americans preferred information that implied the officer behaved inappropriately. These differences stemmed from two distinct processes: we find some evidence for a form of race-based motivated reasoning and strong evidence for belief updating based on racially distinct priors. Differences in summary judgments were larger when individuals identified strongly with their racial group or when expectations about the typical behaviors of Black Americans and police diverged. The findings elucidate processes whereby individuals in different social groups come to accept differing narratives about contentious events.

In 2023/24, the police in England and Wales fatally shot two people, compared with three in the previous reporting year, and six in 2016/17. During the same reporting year, the police used firearms twice, compared with ten times in 2022/23. In general, the police in England and Wales and in the rest of the UK do not have a tradition of carrying firearms, with the country having some of the strictest gun laws in the world. In 2023/24, out of around 147,746 police officers, just 5,861 were licensed to carry firearms in England and Wales. Comparisons with the United States Among developed economies, the United States is something of an outlier when it comes to police shootings. In 2024, it is estimated that the police in the United States fatally shot 1,173 people. There are also significant disparities based on a person's ethnicity. Between 2015 and March 2024, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was 6.1 per one million people, 2.7 per million people for Hispanic Americans and 2.4 per million people for white Americans. Gun violence overall is also far more prevalent in the United States, with 42 percent of American households owning a firearm as of 2023. Gun homicides rare in England and Wales Of the 583 homicides that took place in England and Wales in 2023/24, just 22 were committed by a person using a firearm. By far the most common method of killing was using a knife or other sharp instrument, at 262 homicides, or around 46 percent of them. Compared with twenty years ago, homicides in England and Wales have declined, falling from 1,047 in 2002/03, to just 533 in 2014/15. After this point, annual homicides rose, and by 2016/17 there were more than 700 homicides recorded in England and Wales. Although there have been some fluctuations, particularly during 2020/21 at the height of COVID-19 lockdowns.

This special topic poll, fielded April 1-5, 2000, queried residents of New York State on the prospective Senate race between First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 2000, and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President Bill Clinton, New York State governor George Pataki, Hillary Clinton, Rudolph Giuliani, and civil rights activist Al Sharpton. Regarding the upcoming Senate race, respondents were asked how much attention they were paying to the upcoming election, for whom they would vote, whether that decision was firm, and who they thought would win. Respondents were also asked which of the potential candidates cared more about people like the respondent, whether the candidates cared about the needs and problems of Black people, and whether the candidates were trying to bring together or divide various groups of New Yorkers. Respondents were asked whether they approved or disapproved of the way Giuliani was handling his job as mayor, and the way he was handling crime, education, and race relations. Regarding Mrs. Clinton, respondents were asked whether they approved of the way she was handling her role as First Lady. Opinions were also elicited on whether Hillary Clinton and Giuliani were spending more time explaining what they would do as senator or attacking each other. Respondents were asked to rate the performance of the New York City police department, whether the police should interfere in individuals' freedoms to make the city safer, and if the respondent had ever been insulted by an officer, felt in personal danger from a police officer, or felt safer because of a police officer. Other questions focused on whether racial profiling was widespread in New York City, whether racial profiling was justified, whether respondents had personally been racially profiled, and if the police favored whites over Blacks or Blacks over whites. In relation to the police shooting death of Patrick Dorismond, an unarmed Black male, outside of a Manhattan bar, respondents were asked how closely they had been following the shooting, how common brutality by the New York City police department against minorities was, how the policies of the Giuliani administration affected the amount of police brutality in New York City, whether the officer involved in the Dorismond shooting should face criminal charges, and whether the public comments made by Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, and Sharpton regarding the shooting made the situation better or worse. Background information on respondents includes voter registration and participation history, political party, political orientation, marital status, religion, education, age, sex, race, Hispanic descent, and family income.

This set of raw data contains information from Bloomington Police Department cases, specifically it identified cases where officers have fired a gun at a suspect.

**Please note that this particular dataset contains no data. As of current date, the Bloomington Police Department has had no officer involved shootings to report. **

Key code for Race:

• A- Asian/Pacific Island, Non-Hispanic
• B- African American, Non-Hispanic
• I- Indian/Alaskan Native, Non-Hispanic
• K- African American, Hispanic
• L- Caucasian, Hispanic
• N- Indian/Alaskan Native, Hispanic
• P- Asian/Pacific Island, Hispanic
• U- Unknown
• W- Caucasian, Non-Hispanic

Key Code for Reading Districts:

Example: LB519

• ‘L’ for Law call or incident
• ‘B’ stands for Bloomington
• 5 is the district or beat where incident occurred
• All numbers following represents a grid sector.

A map of the five districts can be located on Raidsonline.com, under the tab labeled ‘Agency Layers’.

Disclaimer: The Bloomington Police Department takes great effort in making all sets of data as accurate as possible, but there is no avoiding the introduction of errors in this process. Information contained in this dataset may change over a period of time. The Bloomington Police Department is not responsible for any error or omission from this data or for the use, or interpretation of the results of any research conducted.

In 2023, 690 black and pardo Brazilians were killed by security agents in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Compared to the 71 whites who died in the same circumstances, the number of black civilians killed in that state was almost ten times greater. In the state of Bahia, the disparity was even greater, with 1,321 blacks killed by police compared to 71 whites.