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How does FBI police shooting statistics compare to Washington Post database on killings by race?
Executive summary
The Washington Post’s Fatal Force database has tracked nearly 8,000 fatal police shootings since 2015 and finds an upward trend and racial disparities — reporting that Black people are fatally shot by police at more than double the rate for White people [1] [2]. Independent reporting and academic projects say the FBI’s official data undercounts these deaths — at times capturing only about one‑third of incidents that The Post logged — which obscures the scale and racial breakdowns seen in the Post’s data [2] [3].
1. Washington Post built a comprehensive, media-driven record
After Ferguson and gaps in federal reporting, The Washington Post began compiling Fatal Force to record every on-duty fatal police shooting since Jan. 1, 2015; by late updates it had logged nearly 8,000 such cases and identified an overall upward trend in shootings [1]. The Post’s methodology combines news reporting, public records and follow-up verification; it reports that fewer than half of fatal shootings are included in FBI tallies, which is the primary reason the Post’s totals exceed federal counts [4] [2].
2. FBI counts are incomplete and the gap affects racial analysis
The FBI’s data collection on fatal police shootings is voluntary for most local agencies, and The Washington Post found the FBI database contained only about one‑third of roughly 7,000 fatal shootings during a multi‑year period, down from capturing about half earlier — a shortfall that understates both the total number and the race-specific rates of deaths [2] [3]. The Post specifically reports that the undercount makes the racial discrepancy appear smaller in FBI data than in its Fatal Force database, with Black people being shot at more than twice the rate of White people in the Post’s analysis [2].
3. Other independent databases and critiques add complexity
Mapping Police Violence and similar projects argue they are more comprehensive than the Post in scope because they include non‑shooting police killings (chokeholds, tasers, off‑duty incidents), meaning comparisons depend on definitions and inclusion criteria [5]. Academic research often uses the Post’s data for analyses (for example, in studies of state variation), showing its influence but also underscoring that methodological choices shape findings [6].
4. Errors, classification issues, and partisan critiques exist
Critics have pointed to errors and misclassifications in Fatal Force — examples include incidents listed as fatalities that were nonfatal and disputed racial coding — and argue such mistakes can skew narratives about police killings [7]. Conversely, reporters and advocates cite the Post’s work as essential because federal reporting systems historically missed more than half of incidents [8] [4]. Both points matter: the Post reveals a larger phenomenon that federal records miss, but independent validation and careful coding remain necessary [2] [7].
5. The reporting gap reflects institutional reporting limits, not just methodology
The FBI’s national use‑of‑force program has been voluntary for local agencies, and participation rates have been criticized as incomplete; analysts note that nonparticipation and confusion about reporting responsibilities contribute to undercounts in federal data [2] [9]. The Post’s journalists built an alternative precisely because the federal system did not mandate complete reporting and was “undercounted by more than half” in earlier Post investigations [2] [8].
6. What this means for comparing statistics by race
Comparisons between the FBI and Washington Post necessarily reflect two things: different completeness and different inclusion rules. The Post’s dataset is broader in the sense of systematically collecting on‑duty fatal shootings from news and records, producing higher totals and a larger observed racial disparity [4] [2]. Other datasets (Mapping Police Violence) may report different totals or racial patterns because they include other kinds of police killings; therefore, race‑based rate comparisons should note which dataset and inclusion criteria are used [5] [6].
7. Takeaway and reporting caution
Use the Washington Post Fatal Force data when you need a journalist‑compiled, consistently updated record of on‑duty fatal shootings since 2015 — it shows higher totals and starker racial disparities than FBI figures and surfaces where federal reporting fails [1] [2]. But treat any single database as imperfect: Fatal Force has acknowledged gaps and been critiqued for errors and race coding, while FBI data are known to be incomplete because reporting is voluntary — the truth requires triangulating multiple datasets and understanding their inclusion rules [7] [2].