Despite the light that the George Floyd protests brought into the country when it comes to the police’s treatment of its American citizens, fatal police shootings continued to increase at levels not seen in years.
According to the Daily Mail, an annual survey from The Washington Post shows that fatal police shootings rose to 1,055, the highest number recorded in seven years.
Of the last seven years, the least deadly year was 2016, when 958 people were fatally shot by police. In 2020, that number reached 1,000 for the first time since the Washington Post started tracking data with 1,021 deaths.
According to criminology, the 34-death rise from 2020 to 2021 was not a significant increase, statistically.
From The Daily Mail:
Of the 1,055 killed, 234 were white and 139 black, with 66 Hispanics dying.
Black people account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, but are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans. Hispanic Americans are also killed by police at a disproportionate rate.
Men are also far more likely to die in police shootings, with 996 of the 1,055 victims male.
Women accounted for 56, and three were unknown.
Roughly 14 percent had known mental health struggles, down from about one-fifth in the two previous years and about one-fourth in 2016 and 2015.
Sixteen percent of people fatally shot last year were killed after police responded to a domestic disturbance call. Eleven percent were fatally shot after someone called 911.
Almost half of those who died were aged 30-44. Seventeen were aged under 18.
In the last year, The Root has covered a plethora of police shootings that resulted in the death of Black people or people of color in Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois and as a result, people have protested the practices of police departments across the country to reevaluate how they police the communities they are meant to protect.