unarmed victims of deadly police violence

Created in the memory of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

SEE THE MAP IN A HIGH RESOLUTION HERE!!

Since June 2020, the United States of America has been experiencing a nationwide wave of BLM (Black Lives Matter) protests in the wake of the unjustifiable killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by the police, calling for justice and police reform. The BLM movement has its origins over 7 years ago, starting on social media as the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter after the July 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, who was charged with murder after shooting Trayvon Martin, an African- American teen, in 2012, reportedly in self-defense.

It gained national and subsequently global recognition in 2014, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a 18-year old black man, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, while the killing of another black man, Eric Garner, which took place just a couple weeks ago, was still in public conciousness. It caused mass protests in Ferguson that lasted several weeks.

As further details of the shooting emerged, protests turned violent, neccessitating police actions that further served to inflame the public sentiment. These events sparked a major and controversial debate in the United States about the relationship between police and black americans, and brought into focus a number of issues. These included the militarization of US police forces, justifiability of the use of deadly force, for-profit policing, discriminatory over-policing of African American communities, racism in the police forces, school segregation, and others.

The unrest in Ferguson eventually subsided, but had a resurgence in November, when Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown, was not indicted by grand jury. The Black Lives Mater movement had some influence in the 2016 elections, but then largely went dormant until June 2020, when George Floyd, an unarmed 46-year old black American man, was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota after being arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit banknote. A white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on George Floyd’s neck for several minutes after he was already subdued and on the ground,while two other officers stood by. The kneeling continued until the medics arrived, but by then, Floyd was already dead.

After a video of this event leaked, it sparked bipartisan furor and mass protests over the entire United States. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, over 20 million people reportedly participated in public protests against police brutality

Every year in the United States, approximately 1000 people get fatally shot by police. Most of the people who get killed are armed suspects, but there is a distinct number of unarmed victims, some of which never posed any threat to the officer. Tasers, even though they are considered non-lethal weapons, are the second most common cause of death in police encounters, as they can potentially induce cardiac arrest.

Some people also die following physical restraint, beatings, use of pepper spray, or after getting hit by a police car. Escalation into lethal violence can occur in many circumstances, such as during traffic stops, street encounters and serving of warrants, but it’s often unclear to what extent it is justified. Law enforcement agencties throughout the United States often don’t publish much information about the lives they have taken, which makes finding the truth very hard unless clear video evidence is available.

Accountability is in general very low, as officers tend to protect each other and rarely suffer any consequences beyond temporary suspension. Suing police departments of misconduct is notoriously difficult, and individual police officers are immune from most job-related civil suits under qualified immunity, however, that might be about to change.

This map shows the names and ages of all documented unarmed victims of lethal police violence in the United States of America since the year 2013 in each of the 50 states. Their race, birth sex and way of death is included as well, to provide a comprehensive picture state-by-state. This graphic includes the names of well over 1000 dead men, women and children who lost their lives in many different, but universally tragic ways

Some died by accident or negligence, while many were killed intentionally. Even though they all involved unarmed victims, certainly not all events shown here were injustified; in many cases, the officers believed they were dealing with an armed suspect or one attempting to reach for their weapon, or were in the process of being physically assaulted. Not all police killings involving an armed victim are justifiable either, though. There have been many controversial deaths of armed suspects that nevertheless raised questions or gained widespread publicity - these are included on the map as a distinct category to provide a more complete picture, including Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and Freddie Gray, as well as dozens of others.

Based on data from the Washington Post police shootings database and www.mappingpoliceviolence.org

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