There are no official statistics – but the “Washington Post” records the number of people shot by police officers in the USA in its own database. In 2021 there were more than 1000.
According to a Washington Post database, police officers shot dead at least 1,055 people in the United States last year. That was the highest value since data collection began in 2015, the newspaper reported.
In 2020, at least 1,021 people were shot dead by police officers nationwide, compared to 999 in the previous year. The number of deaths has remained relatively constant despite recent efforts to reform the police.
Around 330 million people live in the United States, almost four times as many as in Germany. In addition, gun laws apply there, which are usually very lax in comparison. In Germany there is comparable data on the fatal use of firearms by police officers, for example at the German Police University in Münster. According to this, for example, a total of 15 people were shot dead by police officers in 2019.
Again and again protests against police violence
In the United States, around 85 percent of those shot dead by police officers in 2021 were armed, the newspaper reported. The vast majority of victims (94 percent) were men. The Washington Post database on the US police fatal shooting is considered a reliable source. The data collected by the Federal Police FBI is considered less reliable because many police stations do not report cases to Washington at all or only incompletely.
In the United States, the killing of the unarmed African American George Floyd in a brutal police operation in May 2020 led to massive protests against racism and police violence. Floyd was not shot and therefore does not appear in the Washington Post statistics. But many cities and states launched police reforms in the wake of unprecedented protests. At the federal level, the Democrats of US President Joe Biden failed with their planned reforms due to a blockade by the Republicans in the Senate. dpa
