Police shooting victims twice as many as civilians

When police kill someone with guns, they shoot nearly twice as fast as civilians in homicide, according to a comprehensive new study published yesterday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The study, which analyses data from the National Violent Death Reporting System spanned 2005 to 2020, found that victims of police shootings suffered an average of six shootings, compared with only four of the civilian shootings. Nearly 80% of people killed by police have been shot multiple times.

“The homicide rate in the United States is much higher than other high-income countries,” said Vageesh Jain, Ph.D., principal investigator at Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

The study revealed demographic differences. Men are 26 times more likely to die from police gunfire than women. Black, Hispanic and American Indian/Native people in Alaska face more than twice the risk compared to whites. People between the ages of 25 and 34 experience the highest rate, while people in Western countries face four times that of residents in Northeast China.

Although most victims used weapons when they met police (76%), black victims used significantly lower weapons than white victims (69.3% vs. 78.0%). Even after the use of weapons, researchers found that black victims and victims outside the Northeast had more gunshot wounds per death.

“Our research shows that victims shot and killed by police are more likely to have bullet wounds shot by victims than victims shot and killed by other civilians,” said David Hemenway, co-author of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

These findings raise questions about police gun training and use of force programs. In the United States, law enforcement officers are trained to “eliminate threats” rather than wounds or ban suspects, an approach that contrasts with policies in other developed countries.

Public health experts increasingly view deadly police violence as a crisis. “Law enforcement kills more than 1,000 civilians a year, the highest rate in any developed country,” Dr. Jain explained. “More than half of this year’s victims of about 1,000 police shootings have more than four gunshot wounds, which suggests four shots are usually fired.”

Such as the 2020 shooting of Jacob Blake, where police were shot seven times behind, sparking nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism. However, accountability remains elusive – between 2005 and 2019, only four police officers were convicted of murder and 18 murders were ongoing shootings.

The study shows that regional differences in policing practices may lead to differences. Victims in the Northeast had far fewer gunshot wounds than in other regions. “Our findings show that the rates of crime related to guns and police practices against guns vary greatly throughout the region, highlighting the complex factors involved in police killing,” Dr. Hussenway noted.

In addition to determining who was shot, the study uniquely quantifies the number of shots of victims — a measure that researchers believe could help evaluate fatal intent in police shootings.

Dr. Jain concluded: “Efforts to address inequality in risk of police homicides must consider prevention and management of such incidents to effectively build trust in the communities most affected.” Despite the increasing focus on research, the number of civilians killed by police remains stable every year, at about 1,000 per year.