Numbers have a weird way of getting lost in the noise. When you ask how many Black people are killed by police each year, the answer isn't just a single digit you can pull off a government shelf. It’s actually a moving target.
Honestly, the federal government has historically been pretty bad at tracking this. For decades, we relied on voluntary reporting from local precincts, which—as you can imagine—was about as reliable as a weather forecast from three weeks ago. That's why independent databases like Mapping Police Violence and the Washington Post’s Fatal Force project exist. They had to step in because the official tally was basically a ghost.
So, let's look at the hard reality. In 2024, law enforcement killed at least 1,365 people in the United States. That made it the deadliest year on record since independent tracking began over a decade ago. Out of those lives lost, Black people consistently account for a massive chunk of the total, despite making up a small sliver of the actual population.
Breaking Down the 2024 and 2025 Numbers
If you look at the 2024 year-end report from Campaign Zero, Black individuals were killed at a rate roughly 2.9 times higher than white people.
Think about that for a second.
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Black people make up about 13% to 14% of the U.S. population, yet they regularly represent around 25% to 27% of those killed by police. In 2025, the trend hasn't slowed down much. By October 2025, police killings had already surpassed the 1,000 mark for the 12th year in a row. It's a clockwork tragedy.
Some people argue that these numbers are just a reflection of crime rates. But the data doesn't quite back that up as a total explanation. A 2024 study by researchers like Hossein Zare found that even when you control for things like "social vulnerability"—basically how poor or resourced a neighborhood is—the racial spikes remain. In some cities, the gap is even more jarring. In Chicago, for example, data shows Black residents have been over 30 times more likely to be killed by police than white residents.
It’s Not Just About Guns
One of the most frequent misconceptions is that every fatal encounter involves a "shootout." It doesn't.
While gunshots are the leading cause of death—accounting for about 89% of these incidents—police also kill people through:
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- Physical restraint (think "I can't breathe" scenarios)
- Taser deployments
- Vehicle pursuits
- Beating or blunt force trauma
A specific and troubling detail in the 2024 data is that about 20% of the people killed showed signs of mental illness. This isn't just a "police" issue; it’s a failure of the safety net. When someone is having a mental health crisis and the only person who shows up has a badge and a gun, the outcome is often fatal. For Black men in particular, the risk of being killed while unarmed or while experiencing a crisis is significantly higher than for any other demographic.
Why the Gap Still Exists
The Brookings Institution has looked into why these disparities persist even when "violent crime" isn't the immediate trigger. Often, it comes down to the frequency of interaction. Over-policing in specific ZIP codes means more stops. More stops mean more chances for a situation to escalate.
You’ve probably heard of "broken windows" policing. It’s the idea that if you crack down on small things—like loitering or a broken taillight—you prevent bigger crimes. In practice, this mostly just increases the number of high-stress encounters between Black citizens and armed officers.
A 2020 study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health noted that Black Americans are 3.23 times more likely than white Americans to be killed by police. Fast forward to 2026, and while some cities have implemented "de-escalation" training, the national aggregate number of killings hasn't actually dropped. It's actually risen slightly or plateaued.
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Geography Matters More Than You'd Think
Where you live changes your risk. It’s wild, but true.
- Rhode Island reported zero police killings in 2024.
- New Mexico and Alaska often have the highest per capita rates.
- California, Texas, and Florida lead in raw numbers simply because they are huge.
In many Western and Southern states, the rate of fatal encounters is much higher than in the Northeast. This suggests that department-level policy and state-level laws on the use of force make a genuine difference in whether or not someone survives a traffic stop.
Actionable Insights: What Can Be Done?
If you're looking at these stats and wondering what actually changes them, the evidence points toward specific, boring-sounding policy shifts.
- Shift the Response Model: Cities that use mental health professionals or "community responders" for non-violent calls (like Denver’s STAR program) see a drop in both arrests and violence.
- Standardize Use-of-Force Policies: Right now, what is "legal" for a cop in one town might be a fireable offense in the town next door. National standards for "proportional force" could save lives.
- End Low-Level Pretextual Stops: Many fatal encounters start with a minor traffic violation. States like Virginia have experimented with limiting these stops to reduce unnecessary friction.
- Demand Real-Time Data: Support initiatives that require states to report every use of force to a federal database. You can't fix what you can't see.
Knowledge is the first step, but the data clearly shows that how many Black people are killed by police each year won't change until the systems behind the interactions are dismantled and rebuilt.
Stay informed by following the Mapping Police Violence annual reports and the Washington Post Fatal Force live tracker. These are currently the most accurate ways to see the names and stories behind the statistics in real-time.