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Police officers killed 1,129 people in 2017.

More people died from police violence in 2017 than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in action around the globe (21). More people died at the hands of police in 2017 than the number of black people who were lynched in the worst year of Jim Crow (161 in 1892). Cops killed more Americans in 2017 than terrorists did (four). They killed more citizens than airplanes (13 deaths worldwide), mass shooters (428 deaths) and Chicago’s “top gang thugs” (675 Chicago homicides).


Yet only 12 officers were charged with a crime related to a shooting death.

An extensive new study from Mapping Police Violence details the data for police violence. The collective tracks police shooting numbers and statistics, maps the incidents and compiles the data in real time. The site uses information from a number of sources, including Killed by Police, Fatal Encounters and the U.S. Police Shootings Database, to break down shootings by race, location, weapons used, and whether or not the victim was armed. It is a valuable tool used by academics, researchers and certain writers at The Root.


Aside from the fact that only 1 percent of the officers who killed someone were charged with a crime in 2017, some of the report’s most interesting facts include the following:



Of the 534 killer cops Mapping Police Violence was able to identify, 43 had shot or killed someone before. Twelve had previously shot or killed multiple people.

Most of the people killed (718) were suspects in nonviolent offenses, were stopped for traffic violations or had committed no crime at all.

13 percent of people killed by cops were unarmed.

Most of the unarmed victims were people of color. Of the 147 unarmed people killed by police, 48 were black and 34 were Hispanic.

Black people accounted for 27 percent of the people killed by law enforcement officers. Of the unarmed victims of police violence, blacks made up 37 percent, almost three times their percentage of the U.S. population (13 percent).

Of the people who were unarmed and not attacking, but were still killed by cops, 35 percent were black.

95 people were killed when police shot at a moving vehicle, a practice that many say should be banned.

170 of the people killed were armed with a knife. in 117 of those incidents, police shot the person before trying any other method to disarm the person.

20 percent of the people who had a gun when they were killed were not threatening anyone.

Law enforcement training spends seven times more hours training officers on the use of firearms than on how to de-escalate situations.


Again, only 12 officers were charged with a crime after killing 1,129 citizens they were sworn to protect and serve. Here’s to another banner year of police getting away with murder.

Can’t you feel America getting great again?

Read more at the 2017 Police Violence Report.