Guides: Black and Brown Lives Matter: Cases of Police Killings and Assaults: Introduction

About this Guide

Since 2014, there have been several high-profile cases of individuals from minority communities, particularly Black people, dying and being assaulted at the hands of police. In the summer of 2020, a national interest was sparked in examining the role of race and racism in the law and in law enforcement, particularly when an instance of death or assault results in a criminal prosecution or civil suit.

This guide is designed to identify key resources in cases of police killings and assaults, specifically legal resources such as court documents and relevant statutes. Pages are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the individual killed or assaulted.

Washington Post Police Shootings Database

Database on WaPo Website
The Washington Post's database contains records of every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty since Jan. 1, 2015.

In 2015, The Post began tracking more than a dozen details about each killing — including the race of the deceased, the circumstances of the shooting, whether the person was armed and whether the person was experiencing a mental-health crisis — by culling local news reports, law enforcement websites and social media, and by monitoring independent databases such as Killed by Police and Fatal Encounters. The Post conducted additional reporting in many cases.

The Post is documenting only those shootings in which a police officer, in the line of duty, shoots and kills a civilian — the circumstances that most closely parallel the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., which began the protest movement culminating in Black Lives Matter and an increased focus on police accountability nationwide. The Post is not tracking deaths of people in police custody, fatal shootings by off-duty officers or non-shooting deaths.

The FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention log fatal shootings by police, but officials acknowledge that their data is incomplete. Since 2015, The Post has documented more than twice as many fatal shootings by police as recorded on average annually.

The Post’s database is updated regularly as fatal shootings are reported and as facts emerge about individual cases. The Post seeks to make the database as comprehensive as possible.

Underlying data also available from GitHub

SAGE Publishing Structural Racism and Police Violence Collection

Structural Racism and Police Violence: Causes, Impact, and Reform
The work of social and behavioral scientists is crucial in helping to dismantle mechanisms of discrimination, oppression, and violence and create a radically improved society. This collection shares freely accessible articles to support researchers in future scholarship and amplify their critical work; educators as they discuss the impacts of systemic racism with students; and policymakers and advocates in their fight to make sweeping reform.