The Number Of Police Killings Have Grown Since George Floyd’s Murder

Since George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, killings by the police in the United States have continued to rise. According to data compiled by The Washington Post and the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence and analyzed by The New York Times, at least 1,226 people were killed by the police last year. This represents an 18 percent increase over 2019, the year before Floyd’s death. The data shows that most of these deaths involved shootings, with the majority of those killed reported as armed. But many unarmed individuals have still died at the hands of the police, sometimes in ways echoing Floyd’s own death.

Black Americans continue to die in disproportionate numbers. The article notes that despite the national reckoning and a wave of measures aimed at improving police training and accountability, “the number of people killed by the police continues to rise each year.” One especially tragic case involved Frank Tyson, an unarmed Black man who died last year in Canton, Ohio. Tyson’s final words, “I can’t breathe,” mirrored Floyd’s, as he was wrestled to the ground by police officers in a bar. His death occurred even though many departments have been made aware of the dangers of asphyxiation when suspects are kept in the prone position. Two officers involved in Tyson’s death have been charged with homicide.

Although there have been efforts to change police practices since 2020, including new training and accountability measures, the rising trend in police killings highlights the persistence of these issues. The report found that while killings of unarmed people have decreased, killings of armed people have increased. Still, the persistent racial disparities remain clear, with Black Americans bearing the brunt of this ongoing violence. The findings show that the largest racial justice protests since the 1960s have not led to a decline in police killings. The report’s data also notes that “race and ethnicity were unavailable for 11 percent of cases,” further complicating the picture but reinforcing the grim reality that Black communities continue to be disproportionately affected.

Link: NYTimes