It's going to be a long, deadly summer in the United States.

In the first five days of July, American police astoundingly killed 20 people from coast to coast, including five deaths in California, two each in Texas, Florida and Oregon, and one each in North Carolina, Tennessee, Nevada, Oklahoma, Virginia, West Virginia and Massachusetts.

These killings by police are so common, with an average now more than three people killed by police per day in America, that it appears our country is becoming truly desensitized to the violence. Since Eric Garner was killed by the NYPD nearly one year ago, more focus and attention has been given to the prevalence of police violence than any time in the history of the country. In spite of this, all indications are that the problem is actually getting worse. According to leading databases on police violence, 2015 will be the deadliest year on record.

Police in the United States shot and killed more people in the first five days of July than most developed nations will kill in all of 2015.

According to The Economist:



Last year [2013], in total, British police officers actually fired their weapons three times. The number of people fatally shot was zero. In 2012 the figure was just one. Even after adjusting for the smaller size of Britain’s population, British citizens are around 100 times less likely to be shot by a police officer than Americans. Between 2010 and 2014 the police force of one small American city, Albuquerque in New Mexico, shot and killed 23 civilians; seven times more than the number of Brits killed by all of England and Wales’s 43 forces during the same period.