The death toll of people fatality wounded in encounters with police in 2015 recently passed 1,000.
The number is 1,013, according to the Guardian, which keeps an extremely careful count and updates it in real time. It’s called the Counted.
The Justice Department is testing a program similar to the Counted. Following the 2014 unrest and violence in Ferguson, Missouri, President Obama established a task force to evaluate police practices. The task force devoted significant resources to data collection, of which the federal government requires very little.
According the Guardian‘s third-party observations, when the death toll hit 1,000:
- Tasers had caused 47 deaths.
- Thirty-three deaths had resulted from collisions with law-enforcement vehicles.
- Thirty-six deaths occurred while suspects were in police custody.
- One death was caused when an off-duty officer struck a man on the head.
- A staggering 883 deaths resulted from gunshots.
- California had the most deaths, at 183, while Oklahoma was home to the highest deaths per capita.
- That means Oklahoma is where you’re most likely to be killed by a member of law enforcement.
The most accurate, public data on deaths related to law enforcement comes from England—hopefully the DoJ can address this issue.
H/T the Guardian | Screengrab via the Guardian
