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 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 circumstances surrounding "justifiable homicides" by police are the focus of this data collection, which examines occurrences in 57 United States cities during the period 1970-1979. Homicides by on- and off-duty police officers serving communities of 250,000 or more were studied. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire sent to police executives of the 57 cities. The Federal Bureau of Investigation supplied data on justifiable homicides by police, including age, sex, and race data. The variables include number of sworn officers, number of supervisory officers, average years of education, department regulations about issues such as off-duty employment, uniforms, carrying firearms, and disciplinary actions, in-service training, pre-service training, firearms practice, assignments without firearms, on-duty deaths, and off-duty deaths. The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice to the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

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.

This study developed interval-level measurement scales for evaluating police officer performance during real or simulated deadly force situations. Through a two-day concept mapping focus group, statements were identified to describe two sets of dynamics: the difficulty (D) of a deadly force situation and the performance (P) of a police officer in that situation. These statements were then operationalized into measurable Likert-scale items that were scored by 291 use of force instructors from more than 100 agencies across the United States using an online survey instrument. The dataset resulting from this process contains a total of 685 variables, comprised of 312 difficulty statement items, 278 performance statement items, and 94 variables that measure the demographic characteristics of the scorers.

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.

About this dataset

The Washington Post compiled a dataset of every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty since Jan. 1, 2015.

In 2015, The Post began tracking more than a dozen details about each killing by culling local news reports, law enforcement websites and social media and by monitoring independent databases such as Killed by Police and Fatal Encounters. The available features are: - Race of the deceased; - Circumstances of the shooting; - Whether the person was armed; - Whether the victim was experiencing a mental-health crisis; - Among others.

In 2016, The Post is gathering additional information about each fatal shooting that occurs this year and is filing open-records requests with departments. More than a dozen additional details are being collected about officers in each shooting.

The Post is documenting only those shootings in which a police officer, in the line of duty, shot and killed a civilian — the circumstances that most closely parallel the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., which began the protest movement culminating in Black Lives Matter and an increased focus on police accountability nationwide. The Post is not tracking deaths of people in police custody, fatal shootings by off-duty officers or non-shooting deaths.

The FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention log fatal shootings by police, but officials acknowledge that their data is incomplete. In 2015, The Post documented more than two times more fatal shootings by police than had been recorded by the FBI. Last year, the FBI announced plans to overhaul how it tracks fatal police encounters.

How to use this dataset

• Understanding US Police Shootings by Curtis Thompson
• Dataset Questions and Suggestions
• More datasets

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit the authors.

BibTeX

@misc{wapo-police-shootings-bot , author = {The Washington Post}, title = {data-police-shootings}, month = jan, year = 2015, publisher = {Github}, url = {https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings} }

License

CC BY NC SA 4.0

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Data on armed police encounters in the Philippines from 2006 to 2015 for the National Capital Region, Regions 3, 4a, 4b, 7 and 10. Differentiated by subregional unit and year. Categories: suspects killed, suspects wounded, police officers killed, police officers wounded.

Abstract The police constitute the main mechanism found by the modern state to guarantee the maintenance of law and order, with the prerogative of regulation of social relations through physical force as a legitimate and constitutive act. While the police represent the authority to intervene when necessary, they may violate citizens’ rights when making abusive use of force, especially lethal force. This article presents a descriptive analysis of reports on cases where police used lethal force in the State of São Paulo. The results indicate that, even in the face of a significant reduction in homicides, the use of deadly force by the police increased substantially during the 2000s, disproportionately affecting black people, particularly adolescents and young adults. The research concludes that the police have exceeded the use of deadly force and suggest strengthening the police’s internal control to address the problem.

The rate of civilians killed by police in the Venezuela is far higher than in comparable developed democratic countries, with 1,830 people killed by police per 10 million residents in 2025. This compares to 69 deaths per 10 million residents in Canada, and seven in Australia - perhaps the two most comparable countries to the United States in many respects. Country with the most prisoners The El Salvador is the country with the largest number of prisoners per capita. This suggests either that they have the most criminals, or that the police make more arrests and judges hand down jail as a more frequent punishment. Costa Rica has the highest burglary rate, seeing almost three times as many break-ins as in the United States, for example. Does weapon ownership contribute to higher number of violent attacks? Other factors may also be at play. One such factor may be gun ownership. If police shootings are more likely to happen in states with a higher number of registered weapons, one could argue that the threat of violence against police makes officers more likely to utilize deadly force. However, countries like Canada also have a high number of individual firearms licenses, indicating that this factor likely does not explain the entire effect. Social factors may also influence this statistic, such as the use of the death penalty. Still, each fatal incident is complex, and the full situation surrounding each involves many factors, meaning that a simple solution is unlikely.

This is five years of police use of force data for all 468 New Jersey municipal police departments and the New Jersey State Police compiled by NJ Advance Media for The Force Report.

When police punch, pepper spray or use other force against someone in New Jersey, they are required to fill out a form detailing what happened. NJ Advance Media filed 506 public records requests and received 72,607 forms covering 2012 through 2016. For more data collection details, see our Methodology here. Data cleaning details can be found here.

We then cleaned, analyzed and compiled the data by department to get a better look at what departments were using the most force, what type of force they were using, and who they were using it on. The result, our searchable database, can be found at NJ.com/force. But we wanted to make department-level results — our aggregate data — available in another way to the broader public.

Below you'll find two files:

• UOF_BY_DEPARTMENTS.csv, with every department's summary data, including the State Police. (This is important to note because the State Police patrols multiple towns and may not be comparable to other departments.)
• UOF_STATEWIDE.csv, a statewide summary of the same data.

For more details on individual columns, see the data dictionary for UOF_BY_DEPARTMENTS. We have also created sample SQL queries to make it easy for users to quickly find their town or county.

It's important to note that these forms were self-reported by police officers, sometimes filled out by hand, so even our data cleaning can't totally prevent inaccuracies from cropping up. We've also included comparisons to population data (from the Census) and arrest data (from the FBI Uniform Crime Report), to try to help give context to what you're seeing.

What about the form-level data?

We have included individual incidents on each department page, but we are not publishing the form-level data freely to the public. Not only is that data extremely dirty and difficult to analyze — at least, it took us six months — but it contains private information about subjects of force, including minors and people with mental health issues. However, we are planning to make a version of that file available upon request in the future.

Data analysis FAQ

What are rows? What are incidents?
Every time any police officer uses force against a subject, they must fill out a form detailing what happened and what force they used. But sometimes multiple police officers used force against the same subject in the same incident. "Rows" are individual forms officers filled out, "incidents" are unique incidents based on the incident number and date.

What are the odds ratios, and how did you calculate them?
We wanted a simple way of showing readers the disparity between black and white subjects in a particular town. So we used an odds ratio, a statistical method often used in research to compare the odds of one thing happening to another. For population, the calculation was (Number of black subjects/Total black population of area)/(Number of white subjects/Total white population of area). For arrests, the calculation was (Number of black subjects/Total number of black arrests in area)/(Number of white subjects/Total number of white arrests in area). In addition, when we compared anything to arrests, we took out all incidents where the subject was an EDP (emotionally disturbed person).

What are the NYC/LA/Chicago warning systems?
Those three departments each look at use of force to flag officers if they show concerning patterns, as way to select those that could merit more training or other action by the department. We compared our data to those three systems to see how many officers would trigger the early warning systems for each. Here are the three systems: - In New York City, officers are flagged for review if they use higher levels of force — including a baton, Taser or firearm, but not pepper spray — or if anyone was injured or hospitalized. We calculated this number by identifying every officer who met one or more of the criteria. - In Los Angeles, officers are compared with one another based on 14 variables, including use of force. If an officer ranks significantly higher than peers for any of the variables — technically, 3 standards of deviation from the norm — supervisors are automatically notified. We calculated this number conservatively by using only use of force as a variable over the course of a calendar year. - In Chicago, officers are flagged for review if force results in an injury or hospitalization, or if the officer uses any level of force above punches or kicks. We calculated this number by identifying every officer who met one or more of the criteria.

What are the different levels of force?
Each officer was required to include in the form what type of force they used against a subject. We cleaned and standardized the data to major categories, although officers could write-in a different type of force if they wanted to. Here are the major categories: - Compliance hold: A compliance hold is a painful maneuver using pressure points to gain control over a suspect. It is the lowest level of force and the most commonly used. But it is often used in conjunction with other types of force. - Takedown: This technique is used to bring a suspect to the ground and eventually onto their stomach to cuff them. It can be a leg sweep or a tackle. - Hands/fist: Open hands or closed fist strikes/punches. - Leg strikes: Leg strikes are any kick or knee used on a subject. - Baton: Officers are trained to use a baton when punches or kicks are unsuccessful. - Pepper spray: Police pepper spray, a mist derived from the resin of cayenne pepper, is considered “mechanical force” under state guidelines. - Deadly force: The firing of an officer's service weapon, regardless of whether a subject was hit. “Warning shots” are prohibited, and officers are instructed not to shoot just to maim or subdue a suspect.

This national survey was designed to collect information on police departmental policies and practices pertaining to the use of physical force--both deadly and less than lethal--by law enforcement officers. A further objective was to investigate the enforcement of these policies by examining the extent to which complaints of policy violations were reviewed and violations punished. Additionally, the survey sought to determine the extent to which departments kept records on the use of force, and to collect from those agencies that recorded this information data relating to how frequently officers used force, the characteristics of officers who did and did not have complaints filed against them, and the training of recruits on the appropriate use of force. The study also provides data on citizen complaints of excessive force, the disposition of those complaints, and litigation concerning allegations of excessive force. Additional variables provide agency size, demographic characteristics, and workload.

As of November 17, New Mexico had the highest rate of people killed by police out of all U.S. states in 2024, with ***** people per million inhabitants killed by police in that time period, followed by Wyoming with ***** people per million inhabitants killed by police.

This research study was designed to pursue three specific goals to accomplish its objective of enhancing knowledge about Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams and the role they play in contemporary American policing. The first goal was to develop a better picture of the structure and nature of SWAT teams in American law enforcement. The second goal of the research project was to increase the amount of knowledge about how SWAT teams prepare for and execute operations. The project's third goal was to develop information about one specific aspect of SWAT operations: the use of force, especially deadly force, by both officers and suspects. To gather this information, the SWAT Operations Survey (SOS) was conducted. This was a nationwide survey of law enforcement agencies with 50 or more sworn officers. The survey sought information about the agencies' emergency response capabilities and structures. The SOS included two instruments: (1) the Operations Form, completed by a total of 341 agencies, and containing variables about the organization and functioning of SWAT teams, and (2) the Firearms Discharge Report, which includes a total of 273 shootings of interest, as well as items about incidents in which SWAT officers and suspects discharged firearms during SWAT operations.

As of late May 2020, an overwhelming majority of U.S. adults surveyed - ** percent - supported training police in how to de-escalate conflicts in order to reduce the number of deadly force encounters involving police in the United States. In the same survey, only ** percent of respondents supported cutting funding to police departments as a method to achieve the same goal.

Replication Data for the analyses in the article: Police use of deadly force in the Philippines: Comparing Duterte and pre-Duterte levels and patterns

Financial overview and grant giving statistics of Black Cops Against Police Brutality Inc.

A growing literature demonstrates the importance of both race and skin color in one’s lived experiences, including interactions with police. Media discourse and anti-police brutality movements consistently emphasize race while little, if any, attention is given to skin color. This paper seeks to examine how Black Americans navigate the multidimensionality of race with respect to organizing efforts against institutionalized racism. Do Black Americans perceive skin color as informing police interactions and/or support incorporating skin color into anti-brutality movement messaging? Is self-identified skin color associated with these views? A combination of 67 in-depth interviews and two national surveys of Black Americans reveals widespread recognition that darker-skinned Black people are more likely to be brutalized by police and feelings that BLM organizing is implicitly associated with skin color. Yet, there is general hesitancy for movement messaging to explicitly engage with subgroup disparities based on characteristics like skin color or gender. Among self-identified darker-skinned individuals, skin color is perceived as even more tightly interwoven with policing and there is more openness to discussing skin color alongside race. Overall, this mixed-methods project highlights how Black Americans perceive the multidimensionality of racialized interactions and, in search of justice, strategize responses through social movement organizing.

An Officer Involved Shooting (OIS) is the discharge of a firearm, whether accidental or intentional, by a police officer, whether on or off duty. For the purposes of this posting, an OIS will only refer to the instances in which an officer discharged a firearm at a person. CMPD posts Officer Involved Shootings in an effort to create greater transparency of the actions of our employees. It is important to us that members of the community are informed whenever an officer discharges his/her firearm at a person and whether the shooting follows department policies and procedures. We believe that your trust and confidence in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department will increase as you understand what our officers encounter and how we hold them accountable for their actions. The CMPD is continuously reviewing and improving our practices to reduce the likelihood of deadly force incidents.

The attached files reproduce all analyses included in the paper "Do Police Brutality Stories Reduce 911 Calls? Reassessing an Important Criminological Finding." See the readme.txt for explanations of files and folder structure.