Of the 1,146 and 1,092 victims of police violence in 2015 and 2016, respectively, the authors found 52 percent were white, 26 percent were black, and 17 percent were Hispanic. Together, these individuals lost 57,375 years to police violence in 2015 and 54,754 to police violence in 2016. Young people and people of color were disproportionately affected: 52 percent of all the years of life lost were lost by nonwhite, non-Hispanic ethnic groups. Whites also tended to be killed by police at older ages than African Americans and Hispanics—though this is partly because in the general population, whites are older on average than the other groups.
In One Year, 57,375 Years of Life Were Lost to Police Violence
In soccer we call this an own-goal.
The study findings echo those from past journalistic investigations. Washington Post analyses from the past several years show that black males are shot by police at disproportionately high rates. According to several different studies, black men aged 15–34 are between nine and 16 times more likely to be killed by police than other people. In 2017, police killed 19 unarmed black males, down from 36 in 2015, according to The Washington Post. The Post analyses also showed that police usually use fatal force against people armed with knives or guns. (The FBI counted 435 “justifiable homicides” by police officers in 2016, and in 429 of the cases, the person had a firearm when killed.) But unarmed victims of police shootings are also more likely to be minorities, according to FBI statistics.)