Comparing Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post Fatal Police Shooting Data from 2015–2019: A Research Note

Abstract

This research note empirically assessed similarities and differences among three open-source data sets from 2015-2019. Fatal police shooting incidents were compared across Washington Post, Mapping Police Violence, and Fatal Encounters data over a five-year period. One-way ANOVAs, bivariate correlations, and proportional percentage differences were used to examine mean differences, correlational strength, and yearly percentage difference trends. No significant mean differences were observed between Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post. With one exception, bivariate correlations between all three data source dyads were consistently strong. Percentage difference comparisons among data source dyads, however, revealed that the sources are becoming more dissimilar in their reporting of fatal shootings over time. Our results complement existing literature that has compared open-source police shooting data to government sources and suggest that the three data sources were strongly associated with one another from 2015-2019. Increasing differences between sources, however, necessitate continued inspection of the data across the various open-source platforms over time.