The data help establish national base rates for fatal police shootings, which has yet to be done.

The patterns are not consistent with the national rhetoric on police use of deadly force.

This is the first analysis of its type to rely on incident-level national data and to establish base rates for police shooting fatalities.

Abstract

Purpose Previous studies on police use of fatal force in the United States are limited to specific cities. This is the first analysis of its type to rely on incident-level national data and to establish state-level base rates for police shooting fatalities.

Methods Publicly available data from the Washington Post were used to model the data, which cover the period from January 2, 2015 to December 29, 2016 (n = 1948).

Results Although the data are limited, the patterns are not consistent with the national rhetoric that the police are killing Black people because of their race and that officer-involved shooting fatalities are increasing; fatalities are generally stable across both years and the evidence shows those who are attacking are more likely to be killed. The data help establish state-level base rates for fatal police shootings, which has yet to be done.