Nearly 1,000 People Were Fatally Shot by Police in 2015
A total of 965 people fell dead this year after hearing the blast of a gun that belonged to a police officer.
This statistic was gleaned from records of every fatal police shooting in the nation in 2015—a number that until now had never been calculated. The Washington Post concluded a year-long study on Sunday, publishing a comprehensive breakdown of the state of fatal police shootings, from ones involving both armed and unarmed victims. The report reads:
The Washington Post found that the kind of incidents that have ignited protests in many U.S. communities — most often, white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings. Meanwhile, The Post found that the great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at least one of three categories: they were wielding weapons, they were suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to halt.
More specifically, the report made some noteworthy findings regarding the identities of the victims. Some 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to by police this year were black—despite the fact that black men make up just 6 percent of the country. A disproportionately high number of men who were killed without exhibiting threatening behavior were black or Hispanic.
The names of many of those killed by police have incited protests across the U.S. this year and the one before it—yet the shootings continue to happen.
