Sadly… Deaths by Police Continue!

David Couper

Washington Post: Fatal police shootings in 2021 set record since The Post began tracking, despite public outcry

Police shot and killed at least 1,055 people nationwide last year, the highest total since The Washington Post began tracking fatal shootings by officers in 2015 — underscoring the difficulty of reducing such incidents despite sustained public attention to the issue.
Police have fatally shot roughly 1,000 people in each of the past seven years, ranging from 958 in 2016 to last year’s high. 

That the number of fatal police shootings last year is within 60 of the average suggests officers’ behavior has not shifted significantly since The Post began collecting data, said Andrew Wheeler, a private-sector criminologist and data scientist.

Franklin Zimring, a law professor and criminologist at the University of California at Berkeley, said that a policy enacted now may take years to make a statistically significant difference.
About 20 percent of last year’s fatal police shootings were captured on body cameras — the highest portion since The Post began tracking. In 2015, the first year data was collected, body-camera video existed for roughly 8 percent of shootings. 

The demographics of the people fatally shot have remained largely constant since The Post started tracking the data from news coverage, social media posts, and police records. Although the FBI launched its own data collection program to track police use of force in 2019, a lack of participation by departments has put that program’s existence at risk. 

— News from the Police Executive Research Forum, February 11, 2022.
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Published by David Couper

I served over 20 years as the chief of police in Madison (WI), four years as chief of the Burnsville (MN) Police Department, and before that as a police officer in Edina (MN) and the City of Minneapolis. I hold graduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and Edgewood College in Madison. I have written many articles over my years as a police leader. After retiring from the police department, I answered a call to ministry, attended seminary, and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. After almost 30 years serving in and leading two Episcopal Churches in the Diocese of Milwaukee, I am "sort-of" in the process of retirement. Life is good.

17 Comments

  3. With a more than 30% increase in violent crime why should an increase in police killings be a surprise? My question…how many of these killings were not legally justified?

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    1. Yeah, and what about Rittenhouse getting away with murder and the cops didn’t bother to arrest him at the scene of the crime and let him go back to his place in another state? If he had killed a cop, you would have shot him on the spot. What about those people who didn’t get convicted of trying to kidnap the governor? If they had shot the police officers who were assigned to protect the governor, would you have let them off the hook because they were right-wingers?

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    2. Yeah and what about the cops at the January 6 insurrection who were lucky not to be killed by those insurrectionists considering that many of those people were ex-cops and/or regular cops? What about those police chiefs, sheriffs and rank and file cops who make such vile statements against the government about 2nd Amendment rights, that they put their own fellow cops at risk of getting killed?

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  4. Maybe they still believe they are in power and control. Or maybe there are just members of the communities that they need to get their guns to. Whatever it is, let the SOP of the law be on top. CCTVs are everywhere and everything is to be investigated just right.

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  6. To be fair, it is not just the police. People sometimes abuse their rights as well. Let us just respect each other. If you are stopped by for violation, just cooperate and be polite then everything will ends up great. Thanks

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    2. Respect has gone out the door for the last 42 years. Some people abuse their rights? Yeah and when someone exercises his/her right against unlawful actions by the cops, it is the cops who think that the person is abusing his/her rights.

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    4. Many people have tried to cooperate and be polite with the police and ended up being dead or injured for life. In addition, too many cops are always trying to find a way to cite or arrest you and get frustrated when they can’t find anything on you which is why many cops carry weapons and/or drugs on their purse so they can plant them in your car. In addition, they can’t or wouldn’t even explain to you why they pulled you over or make up some flimsy excuse about why they pulled you over.

      It’s the cops that need to go to charm school and learn about manners.

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      1. Seriously???
        “Many people have tried to be polite and ended up dead.” What a warped view of the world. You watch way too many movies and TV, check the facts. Find out how many people the police kill every year who are not fighting or threatening them or someone else before you make such a knucklehead post.

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      3. Virtuous action requires standing up to injustice such as displayed here. If that comes across as “not nice” so be it, trying to always “be nice” is what created the current problems.

        Our most vulnerable citizens are now living in constant fear and misery because police officers have been pulling back due to this kind of adolescent criticism.

        Criminal predators take cover behind “social justice” ideology and few people are calling out the nonsense. More people need to speak out by challenging this kind of thinking and the blatant lies David.

        The police are not the real problem, they are the foundation for combating chaos. There can never be justice without order.

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  7. I hope this kind of happening will avoid. It is hard to figure out who is right and wrong, but if we try to avoid doing crimes or violations, maybe this kind of thing will not happen. Authority should also practice how to talk in a harmonious way to lessen violence

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    1. People haven’t been talking to each other in a harmonious way; otherwise, we wouldn’t be having domestic violence for one thing. Our top political, social, economic, and religious leaders haven’t been doing any kind of harmonious talk for the last 43 years.

      Cops are not taught how to talk to people in a non-confrontation way. It is all about command and control

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