how many people are shot by police in the U.S. annually?
Someone sent me an email asking if I had statistics on the number of people shot by police in the United States on an annual basis.
The short answer is: I don't have those statistics and I am not aware of any one entity that routinely compiles those statistics on a national level.
The most recent national level statistical report on use of force incidents (not just with firearms) that I am aware of is almost ten years old (October 1999) and was produced by the US Department of Justice. It is titled Use of Force by Police -Overview of National and Local Data. I referenced it and linked to it in a previous post you can also check here.
When referencing the Use of Force by Police report by DOJ, keep in mind the following quote from that same report:
"The incidence of wrongful use of force by police is unknown. Research is critically needed to determine reliably,validly, and precisely how often transgressions of use-of-force powers occur. We do not know how often police use force in ways that can be adjudged as wrongful. For example, we do not know the incidence of excessive force, even though this is a very serious violation of public trust. We could pull together data on excessive force using police disciplinary records and court documents, for example, but the picture would be sketchy, piecemeal, and potentially deceiving."
Individual agencies may or may not compile their own statistics concerning the use of firearms. Standards in the compilations may vary considerably. Some agencies may be forthcoming with information and some may not.
Conducting a Google search on Uniform Crime Reporting will give you some information about crime statistics at various jurisdictional levels but it is not likely there will be specific statistics about how often police discharge their firearm at a person.
Searching on line can also provide you with some news articles referencing police shooting statistics such as here and here.
Statistics indicating how many people are shot by police and die may be even more difficult to obtain, especially nationwide.
A very important fact to keep in mind when looking at statistics involving the discharge of a police firearm would also be the surrounding circumstances. Some police shootings are legitimate and absolutely necessary for survival.
Here is an example: (The video stops when a bullet from the suspect's weapon hits the dash camera)
The only stats I remember is when someone was looking into standardizing data by calculating #shootings/1000 officers when looking at individual departments. Or # fatal shootings/1000 officers. I remember reading the average for fatal shootings was about 1.9/1000 and wish I remembered or could find that data.
I think it was around the late 1990s. My city's department at the time had a fatal shooting rate of 16 fatal shootings/1000 officers. It would be 5 per 1000 officers now.
My city's department for example fluctuates with higher shootings one year and fewer the next and they tend to cluster close together. Most of them are probably justified but some are very questionable.
All of them are justified by the department which has only ruled one shooting excessive force during its entire history. The DA's office in my county has never filed charges in an onduty shooting in its history. There was a grand jury indictment against a DA investigator and the man was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and doing seven years in prison. That shooting was pretty bad, worse than manslaughter. The man's name was Daniel Riter.
Some have been disturbing shootings of unarmed mentally ill people or people injured in accidents including one guy who fled after trying to shoplift a paint sprayer which got dispatched as a robbery.
In one case, one officer was struggling with a man on the ground and the man's girlfriend tried to hit him with a car several times. The man fled, the girl parked her car ahead of him hoping he would reach it. The officer tackled the guy and after the man was too exhausted to struggle anymore, the officer got up, walked up to or ran to the stationary car some yards away and shot the girl three times through the driver's side window, killing her then went back to handcuff the man. At first the department said that the officer had shot while he was lying on the ground with the guy and the car was backing towards him. It was months later to find out that wasn't true and the commissioners were so shocked by the truth, you could have heard a pin drop.
I listened to the officer's interview with detectives. They were laughing during it and the detectives asked leading questions helping the officer out with his story. It sounded like he and one of them knew each other personally by the comments.
That shooting was justified by the department, ruled excessive force by the police commission and after a video tape surfaced, the city paid out a settlement on the law suit pretty quickly after that for nearly $400,000.
The shooting of the guy with the paint sprayer paid out an $800,000 settlement. The officers in that case were exonerated.
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You misjudge Riter. It happened in from of our Rescue Mission. We knew of the situtation, and he was justified in force. It wasn't clean, but it needed to be done. Don't quickly second guess those acting the the heat of the moment -- their mindset is to protect the innocent and apprehend the criminal. Riter was a fall guy for a DAs office not wanting to do the hard thing and support the good guy.
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If she had already tried to run over him several times it would be likely she would do it again, especially after seeing her boyfriend lying on the ground. If the guy was lying on the ground too exhausted to get up it would also be likely that the officer was equally exhausted.
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Joe, are you kidding me? He walked up to the STATIONARY car and shot the girl through the drivers side window THREE TIMES. I feel justified in considering that excessive force. This man should have gone to jail. That was cold blooded murder pure and simple.
The police are NOT always right.
Police are trained from the get go that their lives are more important than the rest of us. They are taught when in doubt shoot to kill. I am not a criminal...I do however as a cab driver on occasion exceed the speed limit...when I get pulled over I do not appreciate a cop sidling up to my car with his gun half out of the holster. I DON'T EVEN OWN A GUN. Why should I have to be fearful of a cop with a nervous trigger finger? Over a speeding ticket. It shows great lack of respect for the tax paying American citizens who are paying their salaries. I know here where I live, I don't see the "protect and serve" motto on the cop cars anymore like I used to. I really don't think many police forces feel that that is their job anymore.
Just my opinion...
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