According to the Tuskegee Institute figures, between the years 1882 and 1951, 4,730 people were lynched in the United States: 3,437 Negro and 1,293 white.3 The largest number of lynchings occurred in 1892. Of the 230 persons lynched that year, 161 were Negroes and sixty-nine whites.
So how many Police Shootings do we have in the USA? Well, No One Knows. Between 2003 and 2009 there 4,913 Police shootings in the USA and 61% were classified as homicide. Since August 9, 2014, the day that Michael Brown was shot 83 more people were shot - just during the last 22 days of August - 2014.
Washington Post
Officials with the Justice Department keep no comprehensive database or record of police shootings, instead allowing the nation’s more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies to self-report officer-involved shootings as part of the FBI’s annual data on “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement.
The most detailed analysis of police shootings to date was conducted by Jim Fisher, a former FBI agent and criminal justice professor who now authors true crime books.
In 2011, he scoured the Internet several times a day every day, compiling a database of every officer-involved shooting he could find. Ultimately, he tracked 1,146 shootings by police officers, 607 of them fatal shootings.
You can find almost anything on Wikipedia. But, it is almost impossible to find a Number for the Police Shootings in any year on Wikipedia. Take a look.
Wikipedia Link to Police Shootings
We suffer through American History classes and we hear about the Lynchings during Reconstruction. In some circles, the time is titled the Negro Holocaust.
The Negro Holocaust - A History of Lynchings
The Reality is that in 2014, the Times are worse now than they were between 1882 and 1951. In 1892, when the number of lynchings reached 230, that number is surpassed almost every year by the number of police shootings.
Police work is a dangerous occupation and we all appreciate the work that they do, but we also need to recognize that it is a two-sided coin. This far into 2014, there have been 94 police officers killed in the USA in the line of work. Officer Down Memorial Page breaks down the deaths in the following manner:
Line of Duty Deaths: 94
Assault: 1
Automobile accident: 20
Drowned: 1
Fire: 1
Gunfire: 39
Gunfire (Accidental): 2
Heart attack: 12
Motorcycle accident: 3
Struck by vehicle: 3
Vehicle pursuit: 2
Vehicular assault: 10
Read more: http://www.odmp.org/...
Officers have been killed in the line of fire 39 times in 2014. From August 9, 2014, the day that Michael Brown was shot and killed by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri until September 1, 83 other people were shot and killed across the nation by law enforcement. In 22 days of August, 2014, 83 people were shot and killed in the United States of America by law enforcement without an arrest, trial or conviction.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported 4,813 "arrest related deaths" from January 2003 to December 2013. Of these reported deaths, 61% were classified as homicides - 2,913. There are no more current statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Of these deaths, 42% were white, 32% were black and 20% were Hispanic.
Bureau of Justice Statistics
The Status of a the Research in Police related shootings is deplorable.
Researchers have sought reliable data on shootings by police officers for years, and Congress even ordered the Justice Department to provide it, albeit somewhat vaguely, in 1994. But two decades later, there remains no comprehensive survey of police homicides. The even greater number of police shootings that do not kill, but leave suspects injured, sometimes gravely, is another statistical mystery.
Race and Police Shootings: NY Times