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After last week's shooting in Kenosha, wanted to point out something about what we do and don't know about how law enforcement officials use force. A thread, as they say /1
Take the shooting in Kenosha. How often do police shoot and injure people? We don't know. There's no nationwide data on how often police officers shoot someone who survives, something that can come down to a matter of centimeters /2
How often do police shoot at somebody and miss entirely? We also have no idea. There's no nationwide data on that either. We have no real idea how many times a police officer will fire a gun in the year 2020. /3
How often do police use other kinds of force, like chokeholds, batons, stun guns and the like? We also don't know. Again: No comprehensive nationwide data. /4
How often do police shoot and kill someone? That we know, because this database has been tracking such shootings since the beginning of 2015 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ /5
We've learned a lot from this database, but one thing stuck out at me this year: Police shoot and kill about the same number of people every year. It's remarkably consistent, confounding people who study the issue https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/protests-spread-over-police-shootings-police-promised-reforms-every-year-they-still-shoot-nearly-1000-people/2020/06/08/5c204f0c-a67c-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html /6
One of the reasons that database exists in the first place is because we were having a debate post-Ferguson about fatal police shootings without the actual data -- without any idea of the total universe involved /7
How often do people get shot like Jacob Blake and survive? We have no idea. If the shooting wasn't recorded, would we have heard of it?
How often do people get pinned like George Floyd was? We have no idea. Again, if it was not recorded, what would we have known? /8
How often do people get pinned like George Floyd was? We have no idea. Again, if it was not recorded, what would we have known? /8
There's no grander point here except to say: We're still having the same debates with so much of the data still unknown.
How often does a Jacob Blake-type shooting happen? How often does a George Floyd-esque use of force happen? I don't know, you don't know. Nobody does.
/end
How often does a Jacob Blake-type shooting happen? How often does a George Floyd-esque use of force happen? I don't know, you don't know. Nobody does.
/end
