Fatal Encounters

A step toward creating an impartial, comprehensive and searchable national database of people killed during interactions with police

Fatal Encounters in the news

People keep asking me about this stuff, and honestly, it feels a little like bragging, but here’s a selection of places where FatalEncounters made the news. I can say without false humility that the project was started with the intention of changing the world. It’s way to early to declare any sort of victory, but Congress’ steps toward requiring collection of this data, and the fact that many Americans are now aware that the government was not collecting it feels like we’re making progress. Major media outlets, like the Guardian’s The Counted and the Washington Post used our data to launch their own efforts.

2014

March 18, TruthOut: Journalist Calls for Accountability in Police Killings
April 3: Project Censored picked it up with a blurb (Fatal Encounters made it into the book).
May 28: CounterPunch: Former Nation editor JoAnn Wypijewski
July 22: The far right side of Libertarians picked it up: http://zerogov.com/?p=3514 by Bill Buppert
August 21, Gawker: What I’ve Learned from Two Years Collecting Data on Police Killings
August 26: Then Upworthy: Every Time A Journalist Read A News Story About Deaths By Cops, He Noticed One Detail Was Always Missing
August 25, Majority Report
August 26, Jim Bohannon
August 27, Las Vegas NPR
August 27: CNN and Jake Tapper
August 27: Reddit Ask Me Anything
VilaWeb in Barcelona, Spain:  El mapa de les ‘topades tràgiques’ amb la policia als EUA
BBC London: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-28946204
August 29: Columbia Journalism Review (Would you believe it, it’s almost a laurel! Do I get to thank the academy?)
Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2014: How many police shootings a year? No one knows
September 6, Killing Trayvons, An Anthology of American Violence
October 7, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, A Shot in the Dark
October 14, Good Magazine,Twitter Feed Highlights the Shocking Number of Black People Killed by Police
October 15, HipHop Wired, Twitter Account Lists Number Of Blacks Killed By Police
October 22, Al Jazeera, Activists demand comprehensive federal data on Americans killed by police
November 13, Common Dreams, While FBI Finds Police Killings on the Rise, Real Number of Killings Remains Unknown
November 15, WREG, Ferguson case raises question: Where’s the data on officer-involved killings?
November 24, Washington Post, The Fix, Why it’s so hard to know what to expect from the Ferguson grand jury
November 25, OpEdNews, Burn This sh*t Down!
November 26, Al Jazeera, In week before Ferguson verdict, 12 killed by law enforcement across US
November 26, Telesur, Ferguson case raises question: Where’s the data on officer-involved killings?
December 1, Washington Post, What America’s police departments don’t want you to know
December 2, CNN, Police shootings in U.S. out of hand
December 2, Washington Post, Dana Milbank, On Ferguson, Obama is mostly thoughts and little action
December 2, Des Moines Register, On Ferguson, Obama is mostly thoughts and little action
December 4, KCRW, No Indictment in Police Officer’s Chokehold Death
December 5, Slate Magazine, Count the Dead: President Obama must demand an accurate tally of the people killed by law enforcement.
December 7, Buenos Aires Herald, Obama must demand an accurate count of the people killed by cops
December 8, Charleston City Paper, How many police shootings in SC? Nobody knows … yet
December 9, Jewish Journal, #Black Lives Matter #Mentally Ill Lives Matter
December 11, Sacramento News & Review, How often do fatal police encounters happen? SN&R talks with the reporter trying to figure this number out.
December 11, Washington Post, Congress decides to get serious about tracking police shootings 
December 18, Go Local Prov, Police Have Killed 18 Rhode Islanders Since 2000
December 18, Nonprofit Quarterly, Nonprofit Map of Police Killings Could Aid Action Planning
December 20, USA Today, Interactive map said to show deaths by law enforcement
December 31, Boise Weekly, Fatal Encounters

2015

January 23, California Magazine
February 27, Austin Chronicle
March 5, Fusion
March 5, The New Republic
March 10, Truth-Out
March 12, CNN
March 13, Q13 FOX
March 14, Christian Science Monitor
March 21, The Guardian, Inside the search for the real number of police killings in the US
March 26, PennLive
April 1, Politifact
April 3, Mashable
April 4, Lockerdome
April 9, Toronto Star
April 9, Sydney Morning Herald
April 11, CBC Radio
April 12, Nashville Sun Times
April 14, Autostraddle
April 30, New York Times
May 4, Arizona Capitol Times
May 5, CCTV, The Heat
May 10, Verde Independent
May 28, Al Jazeera America
May 30, Washington Post launches its police shooting database
June 1, The Guardian launches its database of officer-involved homicides
June 10, Politico
June 17, KRNV My News 4
June 17, Raw Story
June 19, Fast Company
July 2, The Marshall Project, Is Google more accurate than the FBI?