Cops Have Killed Way More Americans in America than Terrorists Have

Editor’s Note: People from other countries look at this and remark all the time how they cannot believe Americans live in a place (and somehow magically think they are “safe”) where they have such a high probability of being shot by their own police, just by the way. Considering how many stories there are about it, it’s curious how many pets are shot by cops here…?

Police have killed more Americans on U.S. soil since the year 2000 than the Islamist terrorists. At Vox, Anand Katakam created an interactive map with data from Fatal Encounters, a nonprofit working to build a national database of police killings. This database, and the map Vox created, shows that US police have killed at least 5,600 people since the year 2000. That’s many more than have died in terrorist attacks on American soil.

A huge majority of the more than 5,600 deaths on the map are from gunshots, which is hardly surprising given that guns are so deadly compared to other tools used by police. There are also a lot of noticeable fatalities from vehicle crashes, stun guns, and asphyxiations. In some cases, people died from stab wounds, medical emergencies, and what’s called “suicide by cop,” when someone commits suicide by baiting a police officer into using deadly force.

Here’s a full-page view of the interactive map.

(Read more at Boing Boing)

Further Reading

Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces

Police State – Ten Secrets The Police Don’t Want You To Know! “How To Survive Police Encounters!”

Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare is Becoming Our Reality