A 2017 map of police violence was published on policeviolencereport.org, and it proves that there were only 14 days of the year that didn’t include someone getting gunned down by police. 14.
The publication compiled data from “media reports, obituaries, public records, and databases like Fatal Encounters and the WashingtonPost.” The analysis was created to prove that a vast majority of these police shootings could have been avoided.
Police killed 1,129 people through December 26th. This is considerably the “most comprehensive accounting of deadly police violence” of 2017. The map details the specifics of each police killing, and highlighted the department’s weak points in taking procedures that will dramatically decrease these numbers.
For instance, at least 40 of the officers involved in the killings have killed someone before in the past. The report’s findings show that departments spend more time teaching recruits how to use their weapons, rather than teaching them how to de-escalate a situation. This technique is vital for police reform because 147 of the people killed were unarmed, and unfortunately, majority of them were Black.
The Mapping Police Violence planning team includes activists Brittany Packnett, Samuel Sinyangwe, and DeRay Mckesson. Check out the full map in its interactive format here.
