Tracking every American killed by the police
Journalist D. Brian Burghart is documenting every police killing from 2000 to the present on his Fatal Encounters website.
After the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Walter Scott, many are asking just how many Americans die in altercations with the police. In the absence of official numbers, journalist D. Brian Burghart started compiling his own database on the Fatal Encounters website. The site documents the police killings of of 1,143 Americans in 2014, and 1,029 in 2013. "The ones that stick out in my mind are the ones where the circumstances are seemingly impossible," says Burghart. He points to the cases of Victor White of Louisiana, and Jesus Huerta of North Carolina. In both cases, police say the men shot themselves, despite being handcuffed in police custody at the time of their deaths. There were no charges in either case.