/PG/ New York (Signal High) [Credit: Mapping Police Violence] —– In 2023, U.S. police officers killed 1,232 people. It was the deadliest year for homicides by law enforcement in over a decade, according to Mapping Police Violence – a non-profit research group that catalogs deaths at the hands of police. This is roughly three people per day.
The group recorded 30 more deaths in 2023 than the previous year, with 1,202 people killed in 2022; 1,148 in 2021; 1,160 in 2020; and 1,098 in 2019. The numbers include shooting victims, as well as people fatally shocked by a stun gun, beaten or restrained. The 2023 count is preliminary, and cases could be added as the database is updated.
The increase in police killings comes at a time when the group has observed a thirteen percent decrease in homicides, the largest year-to-year drop on record. Other violent and property crimes have decreased as well.
“Violence is trending downwards at an unprecedented rate, but the exception to that seems to be the police, who are engaging in more violence each year,” said Samuel Sinyangwe, a policy analyst and data scientist who founded Mapping Police Violence. “It hits home that many of the promises and actions made after the murder of George Floyd don’t appear to have reduced police violence on a nationwide level.”
Monifa Bandele, an activist on the leadership team for the Movement for Black Lives, said that while state and local governments continue to rely on police to address mental health crises, domestic disputes and other social problems, killings will continue: “The more police you put on the streets to interact with members of my community, the greater the risk of harm, abuse and death.”
The underlying reasons for the encounters were also consistent. In 2023, 139 killings (11%) involved claims a person was seen with a weapon; 107 (9%) began as traffic violations; 100 (8%) were mental health or welfare checks; 79 (6%) were domestic disturbances; 73 (6%) were cases where no offenses were alleged; 265 (22%) involved other alleged nonviolent offenses; and 469 (38%) involved claims of violent offenses or more serious crimes.
“The majority of cases have not originated from reported violent crimes. The police are routinely called into situations where there was no violence until police arrived and the situation escalated,” Sinyangwe said.
The circumstances behind the 2023 killings mirrored past trends. Last year, 445 people killed by police had been fleeing, representing 36% of all cases. There have been efforts across the country to prevent police from shooting at fleeing cars and people, recognizing the danger to the public. But the rates have been steady in recent years, with one in three killings involving people fleeing.
In 2023, there were more killings by police in rural zip codes (319 cases, or 26% of killings) than in urban ones (292 cases, or 24%); the remainder of killings were in suburban areas, with a handful of cases undetermined. This marks a shift from previous years when the number of killings in cities outpaced rural deaths.
County sheriff’s departments, which tend to have jurisdiction over more rural and suburban areas and face less oversight, were responsible for 32% of killings last year; 10 years prior, sheriffs were involved in only 26% of killings.
In 2023, Black people were killed at a rate 2.6 times higher than white people, Mapping Police Violence found. Last year, 290 people killed by police were Black, making up 23.5% of victims, while Black Americans make up roughly 14% of the total population. Native Americans were killed at a rate 2.2 times greater than white people, and Latinos were killed at a rate 1.3 times greater.
Black and brown people have also consistently been more likely to be killed while fleeing. From 2013 to 2023, 39% of Black people who were killed by police had been fleeing, typically either running or driving away. That figure is 35% for Latinos, 33% for Native Americans, 29% for white people and 22% for Asian Americans.
Police in New Mexico killed 23 people last year, making it the state with the highest number of fatalities per capita, with a rate of 10.9 killings per 1 million residents, Mapping Police Violence found.
From 2013 to 2022, 98% of police killings have not resulted in officers facing charges, Mapping Police Violence reported.
This contributes to the steady rate of violence, said Joanna Schwartz, University of California, Los Angeles law professor and expert on how officers evade accountability for misconduct: “Even with public attention to police killings in recent years and unprecedented community engagement, it’s really business as usual. That means tremendous discretion given to police to use force whenever they believe it’s appropriate, very limited federal and state oversight of policing, and union agreements across the country that make it very difficult to effectively investigate, discipline or fire officers.”
Problem officers with repeated brutality incidents or killings frequently remain on the force or get jobs in other departments, she noted.
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