Law Enforcement officers in the U,S. have killed at least 1,151 people this year, 31 more than in 2023, through October, reports the website Mapping Police Violence. Some 86 black people have died at the hands of law enforcement, meaning that blacks are about three times as likely as whites to be victims based on their proportion of the population, says the website, which is maintained by Campaign Zero, a group founded after a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown a decade ago. Campaign Zero discussed the police killing issue at the annual convention of the American Society of Criminology, which ended Saturday in San Francisco.
The death count, which is compiled mainly through news media accounts, continues a long trend. The website's first annual count, for 2013, found 1,077 police killings. If fatal incidents continue at their current rate, 2024's total could reach 1,378, higher than last year's 1353. (Mapping Police Violence's incident total exceeds that published by the Washington Post, which has tracked 991 fatal police shootings this year, because the website includes deaths caused by officers by additional means, such as vehicles and tasers.) In all, Mapping Police Violence has counted 13,753 police killings in the decade ending October 31, 2024.
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