I was reading some of the comments about the very sad story of Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, MO. One reader claimed that most homicides are white killing white or black killing black, rather than interracial. While this is true, it doesn’t diminish the impact of a horrible event like this.

To make this graph, I’ve taken a five-year average of homicide rates from the FBI crime reports. The numbers are raw; they are not normalized by the demographic breakdown of the US. Please be aware that these are based on race, not ethnicity! For the purpose of these data, the FBI considers Hispanic/Latino to be an ethnicity.

Data source: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/ (Expanded Homicide Data Table 6 for years 2008-2012)