Research Map and Blog #3

Source of the Week: The Washington Post

Although black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account
for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year, The Posts
database shows.
In the majority of cases in which police shot and killed a person who had attacked
someone with a weapon or brandished a gun, the person who was shot was white.
But a hugely disproportionate number 3 in 5 of those killed after exhibiting
less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic.
As of Friday evening, officers nationwide had shot and killed 585 people in 2015,
according to an ongoing examination by The Washington Post. Of those, 60 were
unarmed; 24, like Brown, were unarmed and black. On average, an unarmed black
man was fatally shot by police every nine days in the first seven months of 2015.
Shooting was the most common cause of police-related death, at 680. Of
the 161 unarmed individuals, 71 were shot by police. The second most
common cause of death found in the study were Tasers, which led to the
deaths of 39 people, followed by being struck by police vehicles (26).
Twenty-eight people died in police custody, according to The Guardian,
but this figure does not include victims like Sandra Bland, who died in a
Texas jail under conditions many describe as suspicious, although suicide

was listed as her official cause of death.

Of the 582 people who were armed at the time of their death, 374 were carrying
firearms and 107 were armed with knives. Of course, the numbers also cannot
account for whether those killed were actively threatening police with their

weapons versus those who were not, like Paul Castaway, the Native American

man killed July 12 in Denver while holding a knife to his own neck.
Although police advocates claim the frequent use of force is necessary to protect
officers from a highly dangerous job, the statistics dont seem to back this up. The
National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reported that 25 officers were
killed by gunfire so far in 2015, with the Officer Down Memorial Page noting that
two of those deaths came from accidental discharge of their firearms.

black n killed by US
police at highest rate in
year of 1,134 deaths
Young

Final total of people killed by US police officers in

2015 shows rate of death for young black men was

five times higher than white men

US

police at highest rate in

year of 1,134 deaths
Final total of people killed by US police officers in
2015 shows rate of death for young black men was
five times higher than white men of the same age
Final total of people killed by US police officers in
2015 shows rate of death for young black men was
five times higher than white men of the same age