﻿Police killed a total of 113 people in January. There wasn’t a single day in the month without a fatal police shooting, and there were 10 deadly incidents on January 27 alone. The situations ranged from high-speed police shootouts to self-inflicted injuries that were ruled suicides.

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1 or more police killings

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no killings Source: Fatal Encounters Credit: Sarah Frostenson

These numbers come from Fatal Encounters, a nonprofit that tracks and verifies killings by police with reports from the media, the public, and law enforcement. Some of the data is incomplete, with information about a victim’s race, age, and other factors often missing. The data includes killings that were potentially legally justified, while it is also likely missing some killings entirely. But keeping track is important, as even though the FBI collects some of this data from local and state agencies, its scope is limited.

Here are a few of the police killings in the Fatal Encounters database that happened this past January:

A suspected drunk driver involved in a high-speed chase in Petroleum, West Virginia, was shot and killed by a state trooper after the suspect tried to run over the officer with his vehicle.

An armed robbery suspect was fatally shot by police at a motel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when he refused to put his hands above his head and fired at the officers.

Officers were patrolling a small apartment complex in Ceres, California, because of past drug activity in the building. A suspect ran from police, but it's not known what caused officers to shoot and kill him.

It's hard to gauge whether these types of killings are becoming more common. But there is increasing scrutiny on police behavior in the wake of the deaths of Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Michael Brown at the hands of officers — and Americans’ confidence in their local police forces has hit a 20-year low. The Fatal Encounters database is much more complete than the FBI figures, giving perhaps the best context we have for the wide range of police use of force.