At least 1,176 people were killed by law enforcement officers in the US last year, the most of any year since at least 2013.
That’s 36 more people than 2021, according to the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence, which last updated its database on Dec. 31. It may be an undercount as the organization continues to compile data, which it does regularly for all of the years it tracks.
Of people killed by law enforcement last year, 287 were Black. That’s 24% of the total number of police killings, the group found. US Census data show 13.6% of the population is Black. Police shooting incidents accounted for 96% of the killings. The database also tracks killings by Taser, vehicles or other use of force.
“The majority of these killings began with in response to a mental health call, routine traffic stop, a non-violent offense or disturbance or a situation where there was no crime alleged,” Samuel Sinyangwe, Mapping Police Violence’s founder, said. “Creating alternative community-based responses to these types of situations could make a real difference in reducing police violence and saving lives.”
Calls to reform or defund police departments have grown from activists and protestors in past years, particularly in the wake of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a White police officer. That year’s Black Lives Matter protests are believed to be the largest movement in US history, and international protests also decryied anti-Black police brutality.
The 50 largest cities in the US reduced their fiscal 2021 police budgets by 5.2% from the year prior in aggregate, but police funding also comprised a slightly higher percentage of the overall budgets. Cities including Tampa, Florida, and Phoenix, Arizona increased their police funding in fiscal 2021, a Bloomberg analysis showed. New York and Minneapolis were among those that decreased their budgets that year. New York allocated $5.53 billion toward police spending in fiscal 2023.
