Abstract
ObjectivesTo quantify nonfatal injurious police shootings of people and examine the factors associated with victim mortality.MethodsWe gathered victim-level data on fatal and nonfatal injurious police shootings from four states that have such information publicly available: Florida (2009–14), Colorado (2010–19), Texas (2015–19), and California (2016–19). For each state, we examined bivariate associations between mortality and race/ethnicity, gender, age, weapon, and access to trauma care. We also estimated logistic regression models predicting victim mortality in each state.ResultsForty-five percent of these police shooting victims (N = 1,322) did not die. Black–white disparities were more pronounced in nonfatal injurious police shootings than in fatal police shootings. Overall, Black victims were less likely than white victims to die from their wound(s). Younger victims were less likely to die from their wound(s), as well as those who were unarmed.ConclusionsRacial and age disparities in police shootings are likely more pronounced than previous estimates suggest.Policy implicationsOther states should strongly consider compiling data like that which is currently being gathered in California. Absent data on nonfatal injurious police shootings–which account for a large share of deadly force incidents–researchers and analysts must be cautious about comparing and/or ranking jurisdictions in terms of their police-involved fatality rates.
Highlights
Thanks to recent advances in data tracking police-caused fatalities, we know that roughly 1,000 people are killed by police gunfire each year in the United States [1]
Black–white disparities were more pronounced in nonfatal injurious police shootings than in fatal police shootings
Absent data on nonfatal injurious police shootings–which account for a large share of deadly force incidents–researchers and analysts must be cautious about comparing and/or ranking jurisdictions in terms of their police-involved fatality rates
Summary
Thanks to recent advances in data tracking police-caused fatalities, we know that roughly 1,000 people are killed by police gunfire each year in the United States [1]. Edwards and colleagues drew on Fatal Encounters data to show that “the risk of being killed by police, relative to white men, is between 3.2 and 3.5 times higher for Black men and between 1.4 and 1.7 times higher for Latino men” [2]. In a separate study analyzing data from Mapping Police Violence, Schwartz and Jahn found that “across all [382 metropolitan statistical areas], Black people were 3.23 times more likely to be killed compared to white people. Studies from the 1970s through present day indicate that those killed by police gunfire are but a portion of the total number of people shot or shot at. Across 47 large U.S jurisdictions from 2010 to 2016, only 31% of police shootings resulted in a fatality, and there was a great deal of jurisdictional variation in terms of fatality rate [8]
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