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.

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.

The Counted is a project by the Guardian – and you – working to count the number of people killed by police and other law enforcement agencies in the United States throughout 2015 and 2016, to monitor their demographics and to tell the stories of how they died.

The database will combine Guardian reporting with verified crowdsourced information to build a more comprehensive record of such fatalities. The Counted is the most thorough public accounting for deadly use of force in the US, but it will operate as an imperfect work in progress – and will be updated by Guardian reporters and interactive journalists frequently.

Any deaths arising directly from encounters with law enforcement will be included in the database. This will inevitably include, but will likely not be limited to, people who were shot, tasered and struck by police vehicles as well those who died in police custody. Self-inflicted deaths during encounters with law enforcement or in police custody or detention facilities will not be included.

The US government has no comprehensive record of the number of people killed by law enforcement. This lack of basic data has been glaring amid the protests, riots and worldwide debate set in motion by the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014. The Guardian agrees with those analysts, campaign groups, activists and authorities who argue that such accounting is a prerequisite for an informed public discussion about the use of force by police.

Contributions of any information that may improve the quality of our data will be greatly welcomed as we work toward better accountability. Please contact us at thecounted@theguardian.com.

CREDITS
Research and Reporting: Jon Swaine, Oliver Laughland, Jamiles Lartey
Design and Production: Kenan Davis, Rich Harris, Nadja Popovich, Kenton Powell

Data on police personnel (police officers by gender, civilian and other personnel), police-civilian ratio, police officers and authorized strength per 100,000 population, authorized police officer strength and selected crime statistics. Data is provided for Canada, provinces, territories and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) headquarters, training academy depot division and forensic labs, 1986 to 2023.

This dataset contains Crime and Safety data from the Cary Police Department.

This data is extracted by the Town of Cary's Police Department's RMS application. The police incidents will provide data on the Part I crimes of arson, motor vehicle thefts, larcenies, burglaries, aggravated assaults, robberies and homicides. Sexual assaults and crimes involving juveniles will not appear to help protect the identities of victims.

This dataset includes criminal offenses in the Town of Cary for the previous 10 calendar years plus the current year. The data is based on the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) which includes all victims of person crimes and all crimes within an incident. The data is dynamic, which allows for additions, deletions and/or modifications at any time, resulting in more accurate information in the database. Due to continuous data entry, the number of records in subsequent extractions are subject to change. Crime data is updated daily however, incidents may be up to three days old before they first appear.

About Crime Data

The Cary Police Department strives to make crime data as accurate as possible, but there is no avoiding the introduction of errors into this process, which relies on data furnished by many people and that cannot always be verified. Data on this site are updated daily, adding new incidents and updating existing data with information gathered through the investigative process.

This dynamic nature of crime data means that content provided here today will probably differ from content provided a week from now. Additional, content provided on this site may differ somewhat from crime statistics published elsewhere by other media outlets, even though they draw from the same database.

Withheld Data

In accordance with legal restrictions against identifying sexual assault and child abuse victims and juvenile perpetrators, victims, and witnesses of certain crimes, this site includes the following precautionary measures: (a) Addresses of sexual assaults are not included. (b) Child abuse cases, and other crimes which by their nature involve juveniles, or which the reports indicate involve juveniles as victims, suspects, or witnesses, are not reported at all.

Certain crimes that are under current investigation may be omitted from the results in avoid comprising the investigative process.

Incidents five days old or newer may not be included until the internal audit process has been completed.

This data is updated daily.

This dataset explores crimes by offences in Canada by province for the year 2006. 1. "Assault level 1" is the first level of assault. It constitutes the intentional application of force without consent, the attempt or threat to apply force to another person, or openly wearing a weapon (or an imitation) while accosting or impeding another person. 2. Includes unlawfully causing bodily harm, discharging firearms with intent, abductions, assaults against police officers, assaults against other peace or public officers and other assaults. 3. Includes dangerous operation of motor vehicle, boat, vessel or aircraft, dangerous operation of motor vehicle, boat, vessel or aircraft causing bodily harm or death, driving motor vehicle while prohibited and failure to stop or remain. Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM, table (for fee) 252-0013. Last modified: 2007-08-08.