We need better and more open statistics, in order to improve the police. This story underlines the gap.
After Ferguson, it became apparent that the official government count of the number of people killed by police was low; it was off by about 50 percent. So journalists started counting. The Washington Post counted 990 people shot dead last year, a quarter of them black. This year is on about the same pace. But Klinger says we need more details about every instance of deadly force, even when no one dies.
The Washington Post : 2015 database – 990 people shot dead by police. 2016 database – 707, so far. Methodology. On Github.
Black Lives Matter calls to defund (which does not mean to eliminate) and to prioritize the use of police departments.
