No one knows how many people are killed by cops in the US annually because there is no standardized reporting or national data base that records them. The DOJ and FBI don’t keep comply those records.
The FBI’s data on “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement number is usually about 400 annually self-reported information from about 750 law enforcement agencies. The victims are mostly men, mostly black and brown citizens.
With rare exception law enforcement investigates themselves to determine wether or not police killings are justifiable.
Some new databases are in the works that reach beyond law enforcement like Fatal Encounters. This is an area I’ve been researching since 2005 for a bunch of stories and I’m guessing that we’re going to see the real numbers of police killings in 2015 and it will be in excess of 1,500 all told.
