Police Shootings Data

A very interesting new site, PoliceShootingsData.com, put up to provide the data discussed by political science professors Tom S. Clark (Chicago, formerly Emory), Adam N. Glynn (Emory), and Michael Leo Owens (Emory) in their Deadly Force: Police Shootings in Urban America. There's lots of raw data there, searchable in many ways, though you might start by looking at the key findings. Looks very useful; here's the quick summary:

Sometimes police officers use their guns during encounters with the public. When police shoot, they may strike or miss. Police shootings may wound or kill. They may be justified or unjustified.

But knowing exactly how often, when, where, and whom police shoot in the U.S.A. is unreasonably hard. It's true for cities, suburbs, and rural areas.

PoliceShootingsData.com lets you explore, download, share and use police shootings data for mid-to-large cities. These data are from open records requests of 300 police departments for records from every time a police officer discharged a firearm in all cities with 100,000 or more residents as of 2010.

Our site is intended to inform perspectives on police shootings in U.S. cities. It also provides access to replication materials to reproduce and evaluate the analyses for and findings from the new book Deadly Force: Police Shootings in Urban America. Plus, it exhibits original sequential art to help make police shootings, especially data about them, more public.

Comments

[Richard Harrington]

One thing missing in most press discussions about police shootings is whether or not the shooting was “justified” (the minimum bar) or “warranted” (the best action available). The stories uniformly treat all police shootings as if they were murder.

A couple of years ago I looked at the shootings in the Washington Post database for 2 years.

First thing I noticed was that a lot of the incidents that were labeled as “unarmed” were incorrectly attributed. Primarily because of knowledge after the incident. As far as the police officers knew, the subjects were armed.

Others were in a different category. The Breonna Taylor incident is a good example. It is correct that she was not armed. However, her companion was, and he fired first.

I came up with some arbitrary classifications, and made some rough guesses by looking at news reports and legal docs:

Morally warranted - if the same situation happened again, the police should shoot again
Justified - shooting was justified by the rules/laws/standards in place, but could have been avoided by different actions
Questionable - on the cusp of justified, police actions were questionable (e.g. the Texas case where the officer jumped on the car stopped for an unpaid toll fine, or most cases where officers stand in front of cars)
Bad - most of these result in firings or criminal cases

My rough, highly unscientific, estimate was that 90%+ were justified.

[apedad]

"One thing missing in most press discussions about police shootings is whether or not the shooting was 'justified' . . . . "

Well that's because it can AND SHOULD take a while to conduct an impartial investigation which happens after every law enforcement shooting.

You just don't take the officer's description of the event.

(I'm a retired federal law enforcement official.)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Richard Harrington — Jiggery-pokery with data is not a careful method for moral reasoning. For example, "I could not tell whether or not he was armed, so I assumed he was and killed him," may feel like strong medicine for pro-gun advocacy. But for bystanders who are just trying to understand what happened, that is both repugnant and useless.

[Rossami]

I don't often agree with Lathrop but he is absolutely right that "I didn't know he was armed so I assumed he was and shot him" is anathema in a free country. It is especially egregious in a country where the right to bear arms is explicitly protected.

Your methodology "justifies" far more police shootings than should actually be justified. The Breonna Taylor incident is a good example of that. Her companion may have been armed and even have shot first but he only did so because the police intentionally chose to enter at a time and in a manner that imitated home intruders - a scenario where an armed defense would be entirely warranted.

[wvattorney13]

Except no officer says "I didn't know he was armed so I assumed he was and shot him." That's a complete strawman.

The Breonna Taylor thing is what happens with no-knock warrants. I'm not in favor of them because people get killed for the reasons you said, but that is not the fault of an on duty police officer--that is society's policy.

[wvattorney13]

Justified---I disagree that the police should have to use some sort of least restrictive means standard to keep someone from getting shot. If they commit an ask that puts an officer in reasonable fear of harm, the officer should not have to take evasive action that might endanger him or others. Justified to me is a good shoot.

Questionable---I disagree. Especially your cite about the TX case. Your factual summary is common yet horribly deficient. The driver was stopped because the plate showed unpaid tolls. The driver began to drive away from the stop with the officer standing on the running boards. The officer jumped on the trunk to keep from getting thrown violently from the car and then shot when the driver began to accelerate.

Why is this questionable? Should the police not enforce traffic laws? Should stopped motorists be free to drive away from lawful traffic stops?

What you do with this is give every criminal an incentive to flee or not pay tolls.

I also call this one a good shoot.

[Frank Drackman]

Cops refer to “Justified” shootings as “Righteous”

[arch1]

Thx for the link, agree much more/better data is urgently needed.

But what the heck is going on w/ the “Rate of Police Shootings” bar chart?

1) It shows quite a few departments for which average annual shootings per capita exceeds one, which begs the question: *whose* capita? If it’s the residents, we have departments where (by the pigeonhole principle it follows that) each year, some residents must be eating lead at least twice. If OTOH it’s the police, that is still hard to credit: given that most officers don’t so much as draw their weapon over an entire career, there must be some truly prolific (productive? righteous?) shooters on each such force.

2) The caption mentions that bigger cities tend to have lower rates than smaller cities, and the chart helpfully reinforces that point by highlighting two cities which.. violate that rule. WTF?

[Drewski]

"given that most officers don’t so much as draw their weapon over an entire career"

Don't be gullible. That's not even a knowable statistic, let alone a known one.

[arch1]

This one does seem hard to substantiate. I paraphrased it from slide 1 of the Sequential Art, a series of graphical art which “expresses the motivation for” the book in question. Perhaps if one of the authors sees this they can chime in.

[bye]

Police were restrained during BLM, urban riots, looting etc. by Biden and this seems a result. Something analogous seems evident in LA where National Guard and other policing groups seem justifiably glad to finally uphold law.
32% of Californians support Trump's use of troops, but notice: Our constitution is built on unalienable rights and 32% agreeing about their life, liberty, and property is a tidal wave.