In 2020, uprisings swept the U.S. after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. But new data tracking police killings does unveil alarming truths about the state of the nation.
According to Mapping Police Violence, U.S. police use force on at least 300,000 people a year and injure an estimated 100,000. In 2020, police killed 1,160 people; in 2022,1,269, and in 2024, 1,375. In 2025, cops have taken 700 of our lives. Why? It can’t be because of the copagandist claim that cops are fearing more for their lives.
The majority of people killed by police aren’t accused of violent crimes; 83% are unarmed, and even that percentage is decreasing. But police killings are increasing “in red states, rural and suburban areas, and trending down in blue states and urban areas.”
Over the last decade, tracing back to Ferguson in 2014, fatal police shootings in Democratic-leaning states decreased by 15%, then stabilized after Floyd. But for Republican-leaning states, killings rose by 23%. Rates were highest in rural areas, where Black communities languish in the legacies of sundown towns and Jim Crow. Sheriffs are disproportionately responsible, increasing killings by 43% since 2013. That increase was 3% for police departments in cities and towns.
Police violence is everywhere. But this data can help us identify its most likely targets. How can we protect communities most vulnerable to police violence, be it by location, class, gender, age, nationality, or something else?