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As fatal police shootings increase, more go unreported

Washington Post $ – “Flawed FBI data has left thousands of deaths uncounted and complicates efforts to hold troubled police departments accountable. Fewer fatal police shootings are recorded by the federal government every year, despite renewed scrutiny of police use of force and millions of dollars spent to encourage local law enforcement to report the data. Even though federal records indicate that fatal shootings by police have been declining nationwide since 2015, The Washington Post’s Fatal Force database shows the opposite is true: Officers have shot and killed more people every year, reaching a record high in 2021 with 1,047 deaths. The FBI database contains only about one third of the 7,000 fatal police shootings during this time — down from half when The Post first started tracking…

  • Find your department’s gap in reported shootings. From 2015-2021, thousands of fatal police shootings were tracked by The Post. See how many are missing in the FBI database by department or search for specific department.”

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