Opinion: New reports show that police killings in 2022 set a new high for the last decade. How do these figures hold up to crime statistics from the past century though, and what can we do to resolve them?
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Last week, the streets of Atlanta were met with violent protests after an activist was shot and killed by police officers earlier in the week.

According to a Reuters witness, some protesters threw fireworks and rocks, smashed windows and set a cop car on fire. They marched with signs and chants revolving around “Stop Cop City.”

“Cop City” refers to the 85-acre area of land which is planned to become a new public safety training center. While already owned by the city of Atlanta, activists claim that the $90 million project — funded by the Atlanta Police Foundation — would cut down so many trees that it would damage the environment. They are also generally opposed to the idea of that much investment into police operations.

As a result, protests have occurred at the location for over a year, with some activists committing arson, using explosives and other seriously harmful devices while others have peacefully camped out.

One of these protestors was Manuel Teran. They were removed from the site by police officers in a clearing effort when, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Teran refused to comply and allegedly shot a state trooper. The surrounding state troopers returned fire in self-defense.

While this incident remains under investigation, Mapping Police Violence — which claims to be the most comprehensive account of police killings since 2013 — has released its database for 2022. It reports that in 2022, 1,186 civilians were killed by police officers.

Headlines quickly followed the report claiming police killings have reached a “record high,” featuring “US police kill record number of people in 2022” and “‘It never stops’: killings by US police reach record high in 2022.”
While it is true the police killed an astonishing and unacceptable amount of people last year, it’s important to consider the limitations of this data set.

Mapping Police Violence has only been collecting data since 2013, and while there are databases from the U.S. National Vital Statistics System and the FBI, these lists are incomplete and often inaccurate.

That being said, data accumulated by Peter Moskos — a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice — shows that in New York, police killed an average of 62 people per year between 1970 to 1974 in a population of 7.5 million people. Between 2015 and 2021 though, police killed an average of nine people a year in a population of 8.7 million people.
Look also to cities such as Los Angeles, where the average in the 1970s was 30 people a year compared to 15 people a year recently. Across the 18 cities Moskos examined, there was a 69% drop in fatal police shootings.

But can we really compare the 1970s to now? In terms of straight numbers, yes. In terms of social and political tensions, no. 

It is clear from the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others in 2020 that there is a racial disparity in policing.

“Black people were 26% of those killed by police in 2022 despite being only 13% of the population,” Mapping Police Violence reported.

Additionally, only one in three police killings began as a response to an alleged violent crime. The majority were the result of traffic stops, mental health checks or non-violent disturbances. There were no alleged crimes or violent acts to justify a police officer’s killing of a person.

While there has been a drop in police killings overall in the past 50 years, the number of police killings has continued to increase year to year.

Regardless if you would like to claim last year as a “record high” or not, policy implications must be considered if we would like to see this number begin to trend downwards.

Time after time, members of Congress, activists and communities have called for police and criminal justice reform, and while slight shifts in policy have been implemented locally, we must be looking toward a national, systematic reform.

Recommendations by the Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organization, begin with eliminating qualified immunity and creating national standards for de-escalation. Once that has been achieved, compensation for civilians as a result of police violence and officer wellness must be assessed. Finally, what results is a restructure of the “fraternal” order of police institutions and the culture surrounding policing.

I don’t believe this can all be achieved in the next 12 months. Frankly, I’m unsure if there is a possibility for this to be achieved in the next decade. However, whatever steps we begin to take, we should hope they result in a headline next January that reads “U.S. police killings began to decline in 2023,” rather than another “record high.”