In 2016, I had several posts on fatal police shootings. Unfortunately, the issue of killing by police has come up again, so I went back to the data, which are maintained by the Washington Post and available here. Of course, they just involve fatal shootings, but there doesn't seem to be any other systematic collection of other kinds of deaths at the hands of police, and presumably the great majority of deaths are by shooting.
There is no trend in the annual totals:
2015 994
2016 962
2017 986
2018 992
2019 1004
2020 400
When I downloaded the data a few days ago, almost exactly 40% of 2020 had passed, so that projects to just about 1000 in 2020.
In 2016, I computed the rates of fatal shootings for the 100 largest cities and noted that there were large differences among them. That is still true--the highest rates are in St. Louis, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Miami, and Orlando. The lowest, going from low to high: Irvine, New York, Greensboro, Plano, Chula Vista. If we restrict it to cities with a population of over 500,000, the lowest are New York, Nashville, San Diego, Philadelphia, and Boston. Annual rates per 100,000 ranged from .07 to 1.8. New York City had a total of 37, while St. Louis had 30, with about 1/25 of New York's population. I give the whole list at the end of this post.
My initial idea was to look for changes in the rates, but there wasn't much to see there. That was partly because the numbers are small in most cities, so it's hard to distinguish possible trends from random variation. There are three in which there is moderately strong evidence of a decline-- Indianapolis, San Francisco, and Oakland--and none in which there's clear evidence of an increase. However, as mentioned above, the totals have hardly changed.
People often speak of states and cities as "laboratories of democracy"--the idea is that they can try out different approaches and adopt the ones that work best. Organizational change is difficult, but it is possible: according to a NY Times story "In 1972, New York officers fired 2,510 bullets and killed 66 people. By 2014, there were 288 shots fired and eight people killed." You might think that after police killings began to get more attention, that public officials in places like St Louis would start seeing if they could emulate places like New York or Nashville. But that doesn't seem to have happened. Why not? I would guess that it's people who are interested in politics have become increasingly focused on the national level. Moreover, most people who are engaged in politics are middle class, so when they pay attention to local issues, it's of things that are of more concern to middle class people, like schools.
PS: There are some data on police department policies involving the use of force in the 100 largest cities. It would be interesting to see whether they are related to the rate of deaths.
Rate of police killings (annual, per 100,000), 100 largest cities:
1 Irvine 0.072
2 New York 0.080
3 Greensboro 0.130
4 Plano 0.131
5 Chula Vista 0.139
6 Jersey City 0.140
7 Lubbock 0.149
8 Chesapeake 0.157
9 Lexington 0.177
10 Nashville 0.198
11 San Diego 0.199
12 Philadelphia 0.201
13 Boston 0.222
14 Winston-Salem 0.230
15 Hialeah 0.234
16 Virginia Beach 0.245
17 Detroit 0.246
18 Raleigh 0.246
19 Dallas 0.256
20 Chicago 0.259
21 Fort Wayne 0.285
22 Corpus Christi 0.286
23 Buffalo 0.287
24 St. Petersburg 0.288
25 Laredo 0.290
26 Gilbert 0.299
27 Pittsburgh 0.304
28 Minneapolis 0.315
29 San Francisco 0.321
30 Toledo 0.331
31 Lincoln 0.334
32 Cleveland 0.334
33 Seattle 0.352
34 Chandler 0.355
35 Charlotte 0.358
36 San Jose 0.361
37 Indianapolis 0.369
38 Madison 0.372
39 Fort Worth 0.378
40 El Paso 0.381
41 Los Angeles 0.387
42 North Las Vegas 0.394
43 Oakland 0.398
44 Fremont 0.399
45 Riverside 0.402
46 Washington 0.413
47 New Orleans 0.428
48 Milwaukee 0.432
49 Cincinnati 0.434
50 Houston 0.452
51 Memphis 0.452
52 Sacramento 0.453
53 Omaha 0.459
54 Irving 0.470
55 Durham 0.503
56 Wichita 0.522
57 Norfolk 0.526
58 Portland 0.527
59 Anaheim 0.528
60 San Antonio 0.542
61 Garland 0.547
62 Scottsdale 0.547
63 Tampa 0.552
64 St. Paul 0.554
65 Anchorage 0.558
66 Baltimore 0.566
67 Austin 0.576
68 Henderson 0.583
69 Newark 0.591
70 Santa Ana 0.607
71 Fresno 0.641
72 Colo. Springs 0.649
73 Columbus 0.654
74 Boise 0.679
75 Honolulu 0.682
76 Louisville 0.692
77 Long Beach 0.703
78 Jacksonville 0.704
79 Arlington 0.716
80 Stockton 0.727
81 Atlanta 0.798
82 Denver 0.814
83 Mesa 0.824
84 Reno 0.844
85 Aurora 0.876
86 Oklahoma City 0.880
87 Phoenix 0.889
88 Baton Rouge 0.891
89 Richmond 0.925
90 Glendale 0.925
91 Tucson 1.010
92 Bakersfield 1.090
93 Tulsa 1.101
94 San Bernardino 1.114
95 Albuquerque 1.159
96 Orlando 1.230
97 Miami 1.260
98 Kansas City 1.286
99 Las Vegas 1.306
100 St. Louis 1.877
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