What happened in 15 prominent cases in which black people were killed by the police or died in custody:

Officer fired 6 cases Officer indicted or charged 8 cases Settlement reached 11 cases Officer convicted 3 cases

Cases in which black people were killed by the police or died in their custody have risen to national prominence in recent years, often prompting protests nationwide. This year, an off-duty Dallas officer fatally shot Botham Shem Jean when she mistook his apartment for her own, and Stephon Clark was shot dead in his grandmother’s backyard by the police in Sacramento.

To see how the cases were processed and moved through the judicial system, we tracked the outcomes of 15 high-profile deaths from 2014 to 2016. In some of the cases, the police offered an explanation for their actions, but many viewers of raw footage concluded that their actions were unjustified.

Officers were indicted or charged in eight of the cases. Three cases resulted in convictions, one of which came with a prison sentence after a guilty plea.

On Friday, Officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald in 2014.

After a mistrial for murder or voluntary manslaughter charges in December 2016, Michael T. Slager, the North Charleston, S.C., officer who fatally shot Walter L. Scott in the back as Mr. Scott was running away, pleaded guilty to civil rights charges in May. He was later sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Peter Liang was convicted of manslaughter after Akai Gurley was killed by a ricocheting bullet in a dark stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project. The judge later reduced the conviction to criminally negligent homicide. Mr. Liang was sentenced to five years of probation.

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After two mistrials, Cincinnati’s top prosecutor said in July last year that he would drop charges against a former University of Cincinnati police officer, Ray Tensing, who fatally shot Samuel DuBose in 2015 during a traffic stop. A judge later dismissed the charges.

In May of last year, Officer Betty Jo Shelby was found not guilty of first-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black driver, in Tulsa, Okla.

In seven cases, no officers were charged, and they may never be. For example, in the case of Keith L. Scott, 43, who was shot during a confrontation with the police in the parking lot of his apartment complex in Charlotte, N.C., the prosecutor decided not to charge Officer Brentley Vinson, saying that the officer’s use of deadly force was justified.

In another case, Timothy Loehmann, the officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice in Cleveland, was never criminally charged in the death of the 12-year-old boy. But two and a half years after the shooting, Mr. Loehmann was fired for providing false information when he had applied for the job.

Cases in which officers have not been charged: Case Officer fired Settlement 2016 ’16 Keith Lamont Scott Charlotte, N.C. no Paul O'Neal Chicago no Alton B. Sterling Baton Rouge, La. yes 2015 ’15 Christian Taylor Arlington, Tex. yes $850,000 2014 ’14 Tamir Rice Cleveland no - not for shooting $6 million Michael Brown Ferguson, Mo. Resigned $1.5 million Eric Garner Staten Island no $5.9 million

“Most police shootings are found to be legally justified,” said Philip M. Stinson, an associate professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University and a former police officer who tracks police crime.

“Under the relevant Supreme Court case law,” Mr. Stinson said, “if an officer has a reasonable apprehension of an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or deadly force being imposed against the officer or somebody else, then they’re justified in using deadly force.”