"In 2015, The Washington Post began to log [every fatal shooting](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-year-end/) by an on-duty police officer in the United States. In that time there have been [more than 5,000 such shootings](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/09/what-weve-learned-about-police-shootings-years-after-ferguson/?arc404=true) recorded by The Post. After [Michael Brown, an unarmed Black man, was killed](https://www.washingtonpost.com/policeshootings/) in 2014 by police in Ferguson, Mo., a Post investigation found that the [FBI undercounted fatal police shootings](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/08/how-many-police-shootings-a-year-no-one-knows/) by more than half. This is because reporting by police departments is voluntary and many departments fail to do so. The Washington Post’s data relies primarily on news accounts, social media postings, and police reports. Analysis of more than five years of data reveals that the number and circumstances of fatal shootings and the overall demographics of the victims have remained relatively constant..." [SOURCE ==> Washington Post Article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/) [For more information about this story](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/) This dataset has been prepared by The Washington Post (they keep updating it on runtime) with every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty since Jan. 1, 2015. [2016 PoliceKillingUS DATASET](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2016/)
[2017 PoliceKillingUS DATASET](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/)
[2018 PoliceKillingUS DATASET](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police-shootings-2018/)
[2019 PoliceKillingUS DATASET](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/)
[2020 PoliceKillingUS DATASET](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/)
**Features at the Dataset:** The file fatal-police-shootings-data.csv contains data about each fatal shooting in CSV format. The file can be downloaded at this URL. Each row has the following variables: - **id:** a unique identifier for each victim - **name:** the name of the victim - **date:** the date of the fatal shooting in YYYY-MM-DD format - **manner_of_death:** shot, shot and Tasered - **armed:** indicates that the victim was armed with some sort of implement that a police officer believed could inflict harm - undetermined: it is not known whether or not the victim had a weapon - unknown: the victim was armed, but it is not known what the object was - unarmed: the victim was not armed - **age:** the age of the victim - **gender:** the gender of the victim. The Post identifies victims by the gender they identify with if reports indicate that it differs from their biological sex. - M: Male - F: Female - None: unknown - **race:** - W: White, non-Hispanic - B: Black, non-Hispanic - A: Asian - N: Native American - H: Hispanic - O: Other - None: unknown - **city:** the municipality where the fatal shooting took place. Note that in some cases this field may contain a county name if a more specific municipality is unavailable or unknown. - **state:** two-letter postal code abbreviation - **signs of mental illness:** News reports have indicated the victim had a history of mental health issues, expressed suicidal intentions or was experiencing mental distress at the time of the shooting. - **threat_level:** The threat_level column was used to flag incidents for the story by Amy Brittain in October 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/on-duty-under-fire/ As described in the story, the general criteria for the attack label was that there was the most direct and immediate threat to life. That would include incidents where officers or others were shot at, threatened with a gun, attacked with other weapons or physical force, etc. The attack category is meant to flag the highest level of threat. The other and undetermined categories represent all remaining cases. Other includes many incidents where officers or others faced significant threats. - **flee:** News reports have indicated the victim was moving away from officers - Foot - Car - Not fleeing The threat column and the fleeing column are not necessarily related. For example, there is an incident in which the suspect is fleeing and at the same time turns to fire at gun at the officer. Also, attacks represent a status immediately before fatal shots by police while fleeing could begin slightly earlier and involve a chase. - **body_camera:** News reports have indicated an officer was wearing a body camera and it may have recorded some portion of the incident. [SOURCE](https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings)

Data summary

• File 'PoliceKillingsUS.csv'

  • Table ‘PoliceKillingsUS’ consists of 2535 data rows along 14 dimensions: ‘id’, ‘name’, ‘date’, ‘manner_of_death’, ‘armed’, ‘age’, ‘gender’, ‘race’, ‘city’, ‘state’ and four other dimensions