Since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, police departments across the country have come under intense scrutiny for excessive use of force, particularly for incidents involving Black suspects. George Floyd’s murder is one of many in recent years that highlight the abuses of power that have been present in American law enforcement for centuries.
Police officers are often called to respond to dangerous and violent situations, and are issued service weapons to defend themselves and the public. More than 1,000 suspects are killed by law enforcement in the U.S. each year, and the majority of those killings are deemed to be justified by oversight officials.
Over the 10 years from 2013 to 2022, a reported 11,160 people were killed by police officers in the United States, according to Mapping Police Violence, a research collaborative that collects data on police killings across the nation. Adjusting for population, this comes out to around 3.4 police killings for every 100,000 people. However, the number of police killings in the last 10 years varies considerably from state to state.
In Texas, 1,038 police killings were reported from 2013 to 2022, or about 3.6 for every 100,000 residents, the 25th fewest among states. While there are a multitude of relevant factors to consider when deadly force is used, 45% of those killed by police (with available data) did not have a gun, and 33% were fleeing.
Among cases involving deadly use of force that are no longer pending further review, 94% of officers involved were not disciplined or charged with a crime.
All data related to police killings is from Mapping Police Violence, a research collaborative that collects data on police killings across the nation from the country’s three largest comprehensive and impartial crowdsourced databases. Population- adjusted figures were calculated using five-year 2021 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
