Cops Have Killed At Least 385 People So Far This Year

Police killed at least 385 people across the United States in the the first five months of 2015, according to an extensive report published on Saturday by The Washington Post. That amounts to more than two people a day, and is more than twice the rate of fatal police shootings the federal government has tracked over the last decade. (Officials concede, however, that that count is incomplete.) Despite the national attention on the fatal shootings of minorities by police officers, about half of those killed by cops were white, and the other half were minorities. However, among unarmed victims, more than two-thirds were black of Hispanic, and blacks were, overall, killed three times more often than whites or other minorities. The vast majority—some 80 percent—of those killed were armed with a potentially deadly weapon, the report states, while about 16 percent were either unarmed or carrying a toy that was mistaken for a gun. Nearly a quarter of the victims were identified as mentally ill. Most were poor and had a history of run-ins with law enforcement. The report comes amid a wrenching nation-wide debate on the appropriate use of deadly force by police.