Police have killed at least 2,611 people since Ferguson

[Coyotl]

Police have killed at least 2,611 people since Ferguson

Fatal Encounters, a nonprofit, has tracked these killings by collecting reports from the media, public, and law enforcement and verifying them through news reports. Some of the data is incomplete, with details about a victim’s race, age, and other factors sometimes missing. It also includes killings that were potentially legally justified, and is likely missing some killings entirely.

Vox’s Soo Oh created an interactive map with data from Fatal Encounters. It shows some of the killings by law enforcement since the Brown shooting:

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[Mopar151]

1. Tell me that this is not domestic terrorisim

What did we do, draft a bunch of "death squaddies" left over from "School of the americas"?

[Igel]

2. It's hard to say much about the numbers except they are.

They got the information from law enforcement and from the media.

Law enforcement numbers include anybody who dies in police custody or during police contact. You get arrested and die of a heart attack or you're in prison and die of cancer, you're "killed by the police" according to these numbers.

This includes those the police shot wrongly, and those who were gunning for cops. Those who died in crashes while being chased by police, and those the people chased by police ran into and killed. It includes accidents and suicides. If you're stopped by the police and bolt into traffic and get squashed, or down your stash of drugs and die of an overdose, you're included. It's a grab bag, some of which police should be held accountable for, some of which happen in spite of police, and some of which just happen.


One of the numbers is probably from a couple of miles away from where I live, a couple of blocks from my kid's first elementary school. A guy shot a woman's boyfriend and had her trapped in her apt. He broke down the door, shot her, and when the police showed up aimed at them. He was dead in an instant. Either the woman or her boyfriend was killed, I forget which.

[Rex]

3. That is a small town.

Police have to decide if they want to be peace keepers or rule with a baton. They have a choice.