In 2022, a total of 226 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States. This is a significant decrease from the year before, when 458 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States.

Since the 1780s, over 25,000 United States law enforcement officers have died while on active duty, or due to injuries and illnesses obtained while on duty. Gunfire is responsible for over half of all total law enforcement deaths recorded, particularly before the 1930s. From this point on, the total share of gunfire deaths has decreased significantly, mostly due to the increase in vehicle or health related deaths, although gunfire has remained the most common individual cause of death in almost every year. Gunfire deaths These deaths rose steadily after the Civil War, and peaked at over 200 annual deaths during the 1920s, due to the increase in criminal activity during prohibition. Because of this, the National Firearms Act of 1934 was introduced in an attempt to reduce gun-related crime, by requiring the registration of any transfer of ownership and imposing a tax on gun manufacturers and distributors. After Prohibition's end and the introduction of these measures, annual law enforcement deaths from gunfire have been well below 100 in almost every year, except for a brief spike in the early 1970s, during the crime wave that began in the 1960s and the beginning of the "War on Drugs". Overall, gunfire deaths of law enforcement have fallen since the 1970s, reaching a low of just 34 deaths in 2013. In contrast, the total number of people killed by police shootings has consistently been above one thousand for most of the past decade.

Increase in health-related deaths

The majority of non-gunfire deaths are a result of vehicle-related accidents, and the number of crashes and accidents rose throughout the 20th century in line with the increase in car ownership. However, the number of deaths from heart attacks and job-related illness has also risen over time, due to the aging of the population and increasingly unhealthy lifestyle trends across the country. In recent decades, additional health issues have emerged that have had a disproportionate impact on law enforcement. In 2001, 72 officers died as a result of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and over 350 additional deaths have been attributed to the adverse health effects (primarily respiratory illnesses) sustained by first responders from law enforcement. From 2020-2022, COVID-19 became the largest single cause of law enforcement deaths. Figures relate to cases where the individual contracted COVID-19 while on duty, and highlights the increased exposure to the virus faced by those considered to be frontline or essential workers. This number is likely to fall in the future as infection rates fall and newer strains of the virus are less lethal.

In 2022, significantly more male law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States than did female law enforcement officers. In that year, 204 male law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States.

Between January 1 and December 31, 2022, 33 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in Texas -- the most out of any state. New York, California, Georgia, and Tennessee rounded out the top five states for law enforcement fatalities in 2020.

The study was a comprehensive analysis of felonious killings of officers. The purposes of the study were (1) to analyze the nature and circumstances of incidents of felonious police killings and (2) to analyze trends in the numbers and rates of killings across different types of agencies and to explain these differences. For Part 1, Incident-Level Data, an incident-level database was created to capture all incidents involving the death of a police officer from 1983 through 1992. Data on officers and incidents were collected from the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) data collection as coded by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. In addition to the UCR data, the Police Foundation also coded information from the LEOKA narratives that are not part of the computerized LEOKA database from the FBI. For Part 2, Agency-Level Data, the researchers created an agency-level database to research systematic differences among rates at which law enforcement officers had been feloniously killed from 1977 through 1992. The investigators focused on the 56 largest law enforcement agencies because of the availability of data for explanatory variables. Variables in Part 1 include year of killing, involvement of other officers, if the officer was killed with his/her own weapon, circumstances of the killing, location of fatal wounds, distance between officer and offender, if the victim was wearing body armor, if different officers were killed in the same incident, if the officer was in uniform, actions of the killer and of the officer at entry and final stage, if the killer was visible at first, if the officer thought the killer was a felon suspect, if the officer was shot at entry, and circumstances at anticipation, entry, and final stages. Demographic variables for Part 1 include victim's sex, age, race, type of assignment, rank, years of experience, agency, population group, and if the officer was working a security job. Part 2 contains variables describing the general municipal environment, such as whether the agency is located in the South, level of poverty according to a poverty index, population density, percent of population that was Hispanic or Black, and population aged 15-34 years old. Variables capturing the crime environment include the violent crime rate, property crime rate, and a gun-related crime index. Lastly, variables on the environment of the police agencies include violent and property crime arrests per 1,000 sworn officers, percentage of officers injured in assaults, and number of sworn officers.

As of September 30, there were 54 law enforcement officers killed in the United States in 2024. Within the provided time period, the highest number of law enforcement officers killed in the United States was reported in 2021, at 73 officers.

Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has compiled the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to serve as a periodic nationwide assessment of reported crimes not available elsewhere in the criminal justice system. Each year, this information is reported in four types of files: (1) Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, (2) Property Stolen and Recovered, (3) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), and (4) Police Employee (LEOKA) Data. The Police Employee (LEOKA) Data provide information about law enforcement officers killed or assaulted (hence the acronym, LEOKA) in the line of duty. The variables created from the LEOKA forms provide in-depth information on the circumstances surrounding killings or assaults, including type of call answered, type of weapon used, and type of patrol the officers were on. self-enumerated questionnaireStarting with the year 1998, each of the four parts of the UCR data collection archived by ICPSR is released as a separate study under its own study number. The Police Employee data for the years 1975-1997 can be found in UNIFORM CRIME REPORTING PROGRAM DATA [UNITED STATES]: 1975-1997 (ICPSR 9028). Datasets: DS1: Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Police Employee (LEOKA) Data, 2004 Law enforcement officers killed or assaulted as reported by law enforcement agencies. inap.

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.

Police death toll statistics......................

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 in 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 this time period, the most people killed by police in the United States was in 2023, at 1,353 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.

BackgroundPrior research suggests that United States governmental sources documenting the number of law-enforcement-related deaths (i.e., fatalities due to injuries inflicted by law enforcement officers) undercount these incidents. The National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), administered by the federal government and based on state death certificate data, identifies such deaths by assigning them diagnostic codes corresponding to “legal intervention” in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases–10th Revision (ICD-10). Newer, nongovernmental databases track law-enforcement-related deaths by compiling news media reports and provide an opportunity to assess the magnitude and determinants of suspected NVSS underreporting. Our a priori hypotheses were that underreporting by the NVSS would exceed that by the news media sources, and that underreporting rates would be higher for decedents of color versus white, decedents in lower versus higher income counties, decedents killed by non-firearm (e.g., Taser) versus firearm mechanisms, and deaths recorded by a medical examiner versus coroner.Methods and findingsWe created a new US-wide dataset by matching cases reported in a nongovernmental, news-media-based dataset produced by the newspaper The Guardian, The Counted, to identifiable NVSS mortality records for 2015. We conducted 2 main analyses for this cross-sectional study: (1) an estimate of the total number of deaths and the proportion unreported by each source using capture–recapture analysis and (2) an assessment of correlates of underreporting of law-enforcement-related deaths (demographic characteristics of the decedent, mechanism of death, death investigator type [medical examiner versus coroner], county median income, and county urbanicity) in the NVSS using multilevel logistic regression. We estimated that the total number of law-enforcement-related deaths in 2015 was 1,166 (95% CI: 1,153, 1,184). There were 599 deaths reported in The Counted only, 36 reported in the NVSS only, 487 reported in both lists, and an estimated 44 (95% CI: 31, 62) not reported in either source. The NVSS documented 44.9% (95% CI: 44.2%, 45.4%) of the total number of deaths, and The Counted documented 93.1% (95% CI: 91.7%, 94.2%). In a multivariable mixed-effects logistic model that controlled for all individual- and county-level covariates, decedents injured by non-firearm mechanisms had higher odds of underreporting in the NVSS than those injured by firearms (odds ratio [OR]: 68.2; 95% CI: 15.7, 297.5; p < 0.01), and underreporting was also more likely outside of the highest-income-quintile counties (OR for the lowest versus highest income quintile: 10.1; 95% CI: 2.4, 42.8; p < 0.01). There was no statistically significant difference in the odds of underreporting in the NVSS for deaths certified by coroners compared to medical examiners, and the odds of underreporting did not vary by race/ethnicity. One limitation of our analyses is that we were unable to examine the characteristics of cases that were unreported in The Counted.ConclusionsThe media-based source, The Counted, reported a considerably higher proportion of law-enforcement-related deaths than the NVSS, which failed to report a majority of these incidents. For the NVSS, rates of underreporting were higher in lower income counties and for decedents killed by non-firearm mechanisms. There was no evidence suggesting that underreporting varied by death investigator type (medical examiner versus coroner) or race/ethnicity.

In 2023, it was estimated that five citizens per 100,000 inhabitants were killed in circumstances related to police operations in the state of Rio de Janeiro, a decreased when compared to the previous year. In 2018 and 2019, the city recorded its highest death rate since 2007.

Abstract (en): The Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program is an annual national census of persons who die either during the process of arrest or while in the custody of state or local law enforcement personnel. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) implemented the ARD program in 2003 as part of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP). The DCRP was initiated to fulfill the data collection requirement of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Act of 2000 (DICRA, P.L. 106- 247). It collects in-depth information on deaths during arrest and incarceration, and it provides national-level information on the deaths of suspects and offenders from their initial contact with law enforcement personnel through the time they are incarcerated in a jail or prison. ARD data are collected to quantify and describe the circumstances surrounding civilian deaths that take place during an arrest or while in the custody of law enforcement. These data describe the prevalence and incidence of arrest-related deaths across the nation, identify the circumstances or activities that contribute to these deaths, and reveal trends in the causes and circumstances of these deaths in custody at national and state levels. These data can be used to inform specific policies that may increase the safety of law enforcement officers and citizens, identify training needs in law enforcement agencies, and assist in developing prevention strategies. The current ARD program relies on state reporting coordinators (SRCs) in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to identify and report on all eligible cases of arrest-related deaths. BJS compiles data from the states to produce national-level statistics on deaths that occur in the process of arrest by, or while in the custody of, state and local law enforcement personnel. ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Standardized missing values.; Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.. Arrests related deaths of individuals reported by state and local law enforcement agencies from 2003 to 2009. Smallest Geographic Unit: state Individual-level death data are collected from the 50 state department of corrections in the United States. mail questionnaire, self-enumerated questionnaire

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 Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (DICRA) requires the head of each federal law enforcement agency to submit to the U.S. attorney general, information about the death of any person who is detained, under arrest, or in the process of being arrested by a federal law enforcement officer (or by a state or local law enforcement officer while participating in a federal law enforcement operation, task force, or other capacity) being transported to, incarcerated at, or detained at any facility (including immigration or juvenile facilities) pursuant to a contract with a federal law enforcement agency, state or local government facility used by a federal law enforcement agency, or federal correctional or pre-trial detention facility located within the United States (Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013, P.L. 113-242). The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) created the Federal Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (FDCRP) to collect the data required of federal law enforcement agencies. Federal law enforcement agencies are surveyed on an annual basis about deaths that fall under the scope of DICRA. This data collection includes the 2020 Arrest-Related Death Incident Report (CJ-13A) data and the 2020 Detention/Incarceration Incident Report (CJ-13B) data.

Traffic fatalities within the City of Chicago that are included in Vision Zero Chicago (VZC) statistics. Vision Zero is Chicago’s commitment to eliminating fatalities and serious injuries from traffic crashes. The VZC Traffic Fatality List is compiled by the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) after monthly reviews of fatal traffic crash information provided by Chicago Police Department’s Major Accident Investigation Unit (MAIU).

CDOT uses a standardized process – sometimes differing from other sources and everyday use of the term -- to determine whether a death is a “traffic fatality.” Therefore, the traffic fatalities included in this list may differ from the fatal crashes reported in the full Traffic Crashes dataset (https://data.cityofchicago.org/d/85ca-t3if).

Official traffic crash data are published by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) on an annual basis. This VZC Traffic Fatality List is updated monthly. Once IDOT publishes its crash data for a year, this dataset is edited to reflect IDOT’s findings.

VZC Traffic Fatalities can be linked with other traffic crash datasets using the “Person_ID” field.

State of Illinois considers a “traffic fatality” as any death caused by a traffic crash involving a motor vehicle, within 30 days of the crash. Fatalities that meet this definition are included in this VZC Traffic Fatality List unless excluded by any criteria below. There may be records in this dataset that do not appear as fatalities in the other datasets.

The following criteria exclude a death from being considered a "traffic fatality," and are derived from Federal and State reporting standards.

1. The Medical Examiner determined that the primary cause of the fatality was not the traffic crash, including:

a. The fatality was reported as a suicide based on a police investigation.

b. The fatality was reported as a homicide in which the "party at fault" intentionally inflicted serious bodily harm that caused the victim's death.

c. The fatality was caused directly and exclusively by a medical condition or the fatality was not attributable to road user movement on a public roadway. (Note: If a person driving suffers a medical emergency and consequently hits and kills another road user, the other road user is included, although the driver suffering a medical emergency is excluded.)

1. The crash did not occur within a trafficway.

2. The crash involved a train or other such mode of transport within the rail dedicated right-of-way.

3. The fatality was on a roadway not under Chicago Police Department jurisdiction, including:

a. The fatality was occurred on an expressway. The City of Chicago does not have oversight on the expressway system. However, a fatality on expressway ramps occurring within the City jurisdiction will be counted in VZC Traffic Fatality List.

b. The fatality occurred outside City limits. Crashes on streets along the City boundary may be assigned to another jurisdiction after the investigation if it is determined that the crash started or substantially occurred on the side of the street that is outside the City limits. Jurisdiction of streets along the City boundary are split between City and neighboring jurisdictions along the street centerline.

1. The fatality is not a person (e.g., an animal).

Change 12/7/2023: We have removed the RD_NO (Chicago Police Department report number) for privacy reasons.

Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has compiled the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to serve as periodic nationwide assessments of reported crimes not available elsewhere in the criminal justice system. Law enforcement agencies contribute reports either directly or through their state reporting programs. Each year, summary data are reported in four types of files: (1) Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, (2) Property Stolen and Recovered, (3) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), and (4) Police Employee (LEOKA) Data. The Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest data files include monthly data on the number of Crime Index offenses reported and the number of offenses cleared by arrest or other means. The counts include all reports of Index crimes (excluding arson) received from victims, officers who discovered infractions, or other sources.

Characteristics of law-enforcement-related deaths from The Counted matched and unmatched to National Vital Statistics System mortality records using the National Death Index (US, 2015).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States:

"Lists of people killed by nonmilitary law enforcement officers, whether in the line of duty or not, and regardless of reason or method. Inclusion in the lists implies neither wrongdoing nor justification on the part of the person killed or the officer involved. The listing merely documents the occurrence of a death.

The lists below are incomplete, as the annual average number of justifiable homicides alone is estimated to be near 400. Although Congress instructed the Attorney General in 1994 to compile and publish annual statistics on police use of excessive force, this was never carried out, and the FBI does not collect these data either."

This dataset reflects reported incidents of crime (with the exception of murders where data exists for each victim) that occurred in the City of Chicago from 2001 to present, minus the most recent seven days. Data is extracted from the Chicago Police Department's CLEAR (Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting) system. In order to protect the privacy of crime victims, addresses are shown at the block level only and specific locations are not identified. Should you have questions about this dataset, you may contact the Research & Development Division of the Chicago Police Department at 312.745.6071 or RandD@chicagopolice.org. Disclaimer: These crimes may be based upon preliminary information supplied to the Police Department by the reporting parties that have not been verified. The preliminary crime classifications may be changed at a later date based upon additional investigation and there is always the possibility of mechanical or human error. Therefore, the Chicago Police Department does not guarantee (either expressed or implied) the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or correct sequencing of the information and the information should not be used for comparison purposes over time. The Chicago Police Department will not be responsible for any error or omission, or for the use of, or the results obtained from the use of this information. All data visualizations on maps should be considered approximate and attempts to derive specific addresses are strictly prohibited. The Chicago Police Department is not responsible for the content of any off-site pages that are referenced by or that reference this web page other than an official City of Chicago or Chicago Police Department web page. The user specifically acknowledges that the Chicago Police Department is not responsible for any defamatory, offensive, misleading, or illegal conduct of other users, links, or third parties and that the risk of injury from the foregoing rests entirely with the user. The unauthorized use of the words "Chicago Police Department," "Chicago Police," or any colorable imitation of these words or the unauthorized use of the Chicago Police Department logo is unlawful. This web page does not, in any way, authorize such use. Data is updated daily Tuesday through Sunday. The dataset contains more than 65,000 records/rows of data and cannot be viewed in full in Microsoft Excel. Therefore, when downloading the file, select CSV from the Export menu. Open the file in an ASCII text editor, such as Wordpad, to view and search. To access a list of Chicago Police Department - Illinois Uniform Crime Reporting (IUCR) codes, go to http://data.cityofchicago.org/Public-Safety/Chicago-Police-Department-Illinois-Uniform-Crime-R/c7ck-438e