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 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.

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.

"In 2015, The Washington Post began to log every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer in the United States. In that time there have been more than 5,000 such shootings recorded by The Post. After Michael Brown, an unarmed Black man, was killed in 2014 by police in Ferguson, Mo., a Post investigation found that the FBI undercounted fatal police shootings by more than half. This is because reporting by police departments is voluntary and many departments fail to do so. The Washington Post’s data relies primarily on news accounts, social media postings, and police reports. Analysis of more than five years of data reveals that the number and circumstances of fatal shootings and the overall demographics of the victims have remained relatively constant..." SOURCE ==> Washington Post Article

For more information about this story

This dataset has been prepared by The Washington Post (they keep updating it on runtime) with every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty since Jan. 1, 2015.

2016 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
2017 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
2018 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
2019 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
2020 PoliceKillingUS DATASET

Features at the Dataset:

The file fatal-police-shootings-data.csv contains data about each fatal shooting in CSV format. The file can be downloaded at this URL. Each row has the following variables:

• id: a unique identifier for each victim
• name: the name of the victim
• date: the date of the fatal shooting in YYYY-MM-DD format
• manner_of_death: shot, shot and Tasered
• armed: indicates that the victim was armed with some sort of implement that a police officer believed could inflict harm
  • undetermined: it is not known whether or not the victim had a weapon
  • unknown: the victim was armed, but it is not known what the object was
  • unarmed: the victim was not armed
• age: the age of the victim
• gender: the gender of the victim. The Post identifies victims by the gender they identify with if reports indicate that it differs from their biological sex.
  • M: Male
  • F: Female
  • None: unknown
• race:
  • W: White, non-Hispanic
  • B: Black, non-Hispanic
  • A: Asian
  • N: Native American
  • H: Hispanic
  • O: Other
  • None: unknown
• city: the municipality where the fatal shooting took place. Note that in some cases this field may contain a county name if a more specific municipality is unavailable or unknown.
• state: two-letter postal code abbreviation
• signs of mental illness: News reports have indicated the victim had a history of mental health issues, expressed suicidal intentions or was experiencing mental distress at the time of the shooting.
• threat_level: The threat_level column was used to flag incidents for the story by Amy Brittain in October 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/on-duty-under-fire/ As described in the story, the general criteria for the attack label was that there was the most direct and immediate threat to life. That would include incidents where officers or others were shot at, threatened with a gun, attacked with other weapons or physical force, etc. The attack category is meant to flag the highest level of threat. The other and undetermined categories represent all remaining cases. Other includes many incidents where officers or others faced significant threats.
• flee: News reports have indicated the victim was moving away from officers
  • Foot
  • Car
  • Not fleeing

The threat column and the fleeing column are not necessarily related. For example, there is an incident in which the suspect is fleeing and at the same time turns to fire at gun at the officer. Also, attacks represent a status immediately before fatal shots by police while fleeing could begin slightly earlier and involve a chase. - body_camera: News reports have indicated an officer w...

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Context

Delving into Police violence in the US, with emphasis on Armed vs Unarmed shootings, race dynamics, gender discrepancies, and geographic distribution.

Content

Columns include: "Victim's name", "Victim's age", "Victim's gender", "Victim's race", "Date of Incident (month/day/year)", "City", "State" , "Zipcode", "Agency responsible for death", "Cause of death", "Criminal Charges?", "Symptoms of mental illness?", "Alleged Weapon (Source: WaPo and Review of Cases Not Included in WaPo Database)", "Alleged Threat Level (Source: WaPo)", "Fleeing (Source: WaPo)", "Armed/Unarmed Status"

Acknowledgements

Source: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/states

Inspiration

Which states have the highest levels of police violence? How is racial violence distributed? How often do police shoot unarmed individuals?

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.

The Washington Post is compiling a database 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 — including the race of the deceased, the circumstances of the shooting, whether the person was armed and whether the person was experiencing a mental-health crisis — 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 Post conducted additional reporting in many cases.

In 2016, The Post is gathering additional information about each fatal shooting by police 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. Officers’ names are being included in the database after The Post contacts the departments to request comment.

The Post is documenting only those shootings in which a police officer, in the line of duty, shoots and kills 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 twice as many fatal shootings by police as had been recorded by the FBI. Last year, the FBI announced plans to overhaul how it tracks fatal police encounters.

The Post's database is updated regularly as fatal shootings are reported and as facts emerge about individual cases. The Post is seeking assistance in making the database as comprehensive as possible. To provide information about fatal police shootings since Jan. 1, 2015, send us an email at policeshootingsfeedback@washpost.com. The Post is also interested in obtaining photos of the deceased and original videos of fatal encounters with police.

Data Dictionary

...

Key	List of...	Comment	Example Value
Person.Name	String	Full name of the individual or "Unknown" if not reported	"Tim Elliot"
Person.Age	Integer	Age in years of the individual or 0 (zero) if not reported	53
Person.Gender	String	One of Male, Female, or Unknown	"Male"
Person.Race	String	One of Asian, African American, White, Hispanic, Native American, Other, or Unknown.	"Asian"
Incident.Date.Month	Integer	Month (1-12) in which the shooting occurred	1
Incident.Date.Day	Integer	Day (1-31) in which the shooting occurred	2
Incident.Date.Year	Integer	Year (2015-2019) in which the shooting occurred	2015
Incident.Date.Full	String	Date in which shooting occurred (Year/Month/Day)	"2015/01/02"
Incident.Location.City	String	Name of city in which the shooting occurred	"Shelton"
Incident.Location.State	String	Name of U.S. State in which the shooting occurred	"WA"
Factors.Armed	String	Description of any weapon carried by the person (.e., "gun", "knife", "unarmed"); value is "unknown" if not reported.	"gun"
Factors.Mental-Illness	Boolean	True if factors of mental illness were perceived in the person; False otherwise	True
Factors.Threat-Level	String	Threat of person as perceived by police. One of "attack", "undetermined", or "other"; value is "unknown" if not reported.	"attack"
Factors.Fleeing	String	Means by which person was fleeing (e.g., "Car", "Foot") or "Not fleeing"; value is "unknown" if not reported.	"Not fleeing"
Shooting.Manner

Knives or other sharp objects were involved in ** percent of homicides in England and Wales in 2023/24, the most of any method of killing. Homicides which involved hitting or kicking without a weapon made up **** percent of homicides, while shootings were identified as the method in *** percent of homicides. Overall, there were *** homicides in this reporting year, which was slightly lower than in the previous year, when there were ***, but noticeably higher than in 2014/15, when there were ***. Firearm homicides rare in England and Wales In 2023/24, there were *** knife homicides in England and Wales, compared with *** in 2021/22, which was the highest figure recently. By comparison, homicides which involved the use of a firearm were far less common, with just ** in the 2023/24 reporting year. Due to strict gun laws and low levels of ownership, the UK contrasts starkly with the United States, which has struggled with high levels of gun violence. Although some specialist police officers in England and Wales are licensed to carry firearms, the majority of police officers are unarmed. In 2023/24, for example, there were just ***** armed police, out of around ******* police officers. Overall knife crime on the rise Like many other types of crime, knife crime offences in the ***** started to decline at the start of the decade before creeping up again from 2014 onwards, reaching almost ****** in 2019/20. In London, where much of the media’s attention on knife crime is focused, there were ****** knife crime offences alone in 2019/20. Although this fell during subsequent reporting years, which were influenced by COVID-19 restrictions, it remains to be seen if the trend will continue. In 2023/24, the number of knife offences in the capital was higher than in any other year since 2019/20.

How many police officers are there in the U.S.? In 2023, there were 720,652 full-time law enforcement officers employed in the United States, an increase from 708,001 the previous year. Within the provided time period, the number of full-time law enforcement officers was lowest in 2013, with 626,942 officers. Employment in law enforcement According to the source, law enforcement officers are defined as those individuals who regularly carry a firearm and an official badge on their person, have full powers of arrest, and whose salaries are paid from federal funds set aside specifically for sworn law enforcement. Law enforcement, particularly when it comes to officers, is a male-dominated field. Law enforcement employees can either be officers or civilians, and federal law enforcement agencies cover a wide area of jurisdictions -- from the National Park Service to the FBI.
Police in the United States The police in the United States have come under fire over the past few years for accusations of use of unnecessary force and for the number of people who are shot to death by police in the U.S. Police officers in the United States are regularly armed, and in comparison, 19 countries, including Iceland, New Zealand, and Ireland, do not regularly arm their police forces.

Context

This dataset contains complete information about various aspects of crimes happened in India from 2001. There are many factors that can be analysed from this dataset. Over all, I hope this dataset helps us to understand better about India.

Content

1. I : Cases Reported and their Disposal by Police and Court
   1. Indian Penal Code
   2. Special & Local Laws
2. IA : SC/ST Cases Reported and their Disposal by Police and Court
   1. Crime against SCs
   2. Crime against STs

3. IB : Children Cases Reported and their Disposal by Police and Court

   1. Abetment of Suicide (Section 305 IPC)
   2. Buying of Girls for Prostitution (Section 373 IPC)
   3. Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929
   4. Exposure and Abandonment (Section 317 IPC)
   5. Foeticide (Section 315 and 316 IPC)
   6. Infanticide (Section 315 IPC)
   7. Kidnapping & Abduction (Section 360,361,363,363-A, 363 read with Section 384, 366, 367 & 369 IPC)
   8. Murder (Section 302, 315 IPC)
   9. Other Crimes against Children
   10. Other Murder of Children (Section 302 IPC)
   11. Procuration of Minor Girls (Section 366-A IPC)
   12. Rape (Section 376 IPC)
   13. Selling of Girls for Prostitution (Section 372 IPC)
   14. Total Crimes against Children

4. II : Persons Arrested and their Disposal by Police and Court

   1. Indian Penal Code
   2. Special and Local Laws

5. IIA : SC/ST Persons Arrested and their Disposal by Police and Court

   1. Crime against SCs
   2. Crime against STs

6. IIB : Children Persons Arrested and their Disposal by Police and Court

   1. Abetment of suicide (Section 305 IPC)
   2. Buying of girls for prostitution (Section 373 IPC)
   3. Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929
   4. Exposure and Abandonment (Section 317 IPC)
   5. Foeticide (Section 315 and 316 IPC)
   6. Kidnapping & Abduction (Section 360,361,363,363-A, 366, 367 & 369 IPC)
   7. Murder - Infanticide (Section 315 IPC)
   8. Murder - Other Murder of Children
   9. Murder (Section 302, 315 IPC)
   10. Other Crimes against Children
   11. Procuration of minor girls (Section 366-A IPC)
   12. Rape (Section 376 IPC)
   13. Selling of girls for prostitution (Section 372 IPC)
   14. Total Crimes against Children

7. IV : Persons Arrested by Sex and Age Group

   1. Indian Penal Code
   2. Special & Local Laws

8. V : Juveniles Apprehended

   1. Indian Penal Code
   2. Special & Local Laws

9. VI : Juveniles Arrested and their Disposal

10. VII : Property Stolen & Recovered (Crime Head)

    1. Dacoity
    2. Robbery
    3. Burglary
    4. Theft
    5. Criminal Breach of Trust
    6. Other Property
    7. Total Property Stolen & Recovered

11. VIII : Property Stolen & Recovered (Nature of Property)

    1. Communation and Electricity Wire
    2. Cattle
    3. Cycle
    4. Motor Vehicles
    5. Motor Vehicles - Motor Cycle/Scooters
    6. Motor Vehicles - Motor Car/Taxi/Jeep
    7. Motor Vehicles - Other Motor Vehicles
    8. Fire Arms
    9. Explosives/Explosive Substances
    10. Electronic Components
    11. Cultural Property including Antiques
    12. Other kinds of Property
    13. Total Property Stolen & Recovered

12. IX : Police Strength (Actual & Sanctioned)

    1. A) Actual Civil Police (Incl. District Armed Police and Women Police)
    2. A) Acual Armed Police (Incl. Women Police)
    3. A) Actual Police Strength (Incl. Women)
    4. B) Acual Women Civil Police (Incl. District Armed Force)
    5. B) Actual Women Armed Police
    6. B) Actual Women Police Strength
    7. C) Sanctioned Civil Police (Incl. District Armed Police)
    8. C) Santioned Armed Police (Incl. Women Police)
    9. C) Santioned Police Strength (Incl. Women)
    10. D) Sanctioned Women Civil Police (Incl. District Armed Police)
    11. D) Sanctioned Women Armed Police
    12. D) Sanctioned Women Police Strength

13. X : Police Personnel Killed or Injured on duty

    1. Constables
    2. Head Constables
    3. Assistant Sub-Inspectos
    4. Sub-Inspectors
    5. Inspectors
    6. Gazetted Officers
    7. Total Police Killed or Injured

14. X-B : Age Profile of Police Personnel Killed on Duty

15. X-C : Natural Deaths and Suicides of Police Personnel

    1. Natural Deaths of Police Personnel (while in service)
    2. Police Personnel Committed Suicide

16. XI : Casualties under Police Firing and LathiCharge

    1. Riot Control
    2. Anti Dacoity Operations
    3. Against Extremists & Terrorists
    4. Against Others
    5. Total Casualties

17. XII : Cases Reported Value of Property Stolen under Dacoity, Robbery, Burglary and Theft by Place of Occurance

    1. Residential Premises
    2. Highways
    3. River and Sea
    4. Railways 4.1 In Running Trains 4.2 Others
    5. Banks
    6. Commercial Establishments (Shops etc.)
    7. Other Places
    8. Total

18. XIII : Particulars of Juveniles Arrested

    1. Education
    2. Economic Setup
    3. Family Background
    4. Recidivism

19. XIV : Motive/Cause of Murder ...

According to a survey conducted in 2023, the majority of public K-12 teachers agreed that improving mental health screening and treatment for children and adults would be extremely or very effective at preventing school shootings in the United States, with ** percent sharing this belief. Having police officers or armed security stationed in schools was also seen as an extremely or very effective strategy against school shootings by ** percent of public K-12 teachers, while ** percent felt the same way about having metal detectors in schools. However, the least amount of support was directed towards allowing teachers and school administrators to carry guns in schools, with only ** percent believing that this strategy would be extremely or very effective at preventing school shootings.