How many unarmed Black people have been killed by police in the U.S. each year since 2015?
Executive summary
Available reporting and databases disagree on counting methods, but multiple reputable sources using crowd‑tracked datasets show a measurable number of unarmed Black people killed by police since 2015: NPR reported “at least 135” unarmed Black people killed through 2020 [1]; an academic review using the Washington Post database counted 138 unarmed Black men among 1,636 Black men killed from 2015–2020 [2]. Major ongoing trackers (Washington Post, Mapping Police Violence) continue to document fatal police shootings from 2015 onward but differ in classification and context [3] [4].
1. What the main databases count and why numbers differ
The Washington Post’s Fatal Force database was created to record every on‑duty police shooting death from Jan. 1, 2015, forward and is widely used in academic work and media summaries [3]. Mapping Police Violence compiles a similar dataset and is used in research on the public‑health effects of police killings [4] [5]. These trackers rely on local reporting, official statements and open‑source verification; they differ from federal tallies that are known to undercount fatal police shootings, which is why independent projects yield higher totals than FBI or CDC figures [3] [6].
2. Published counts for “unarmed Black” fatalities since 2015
Investigations and studies that examined the period starting in 2015 provide concrete numbers but with varying scopes: NPR’s 2021 investigation reported “at least 135” unarmed Black men and women killed by police since 2015 [1]. A peer‑reviewed analysis that used the Washington Post database reported that from 2015 through 2020 there were 1,636 Black men fatally killed by police, of whom 138 were classified as unarmed [2]. These two figures are consistent in scale and illustrate that multiple audits of the same public datasets produce similar counts for that interval [1] [2].
3. Year‑by‑year totals: limits of available sources
Available sources do not present a complete, single year‑by‑year table of unarmed Black people killed by police for every year since 2015 in the material you provided. NPR gives an aggregate (“at least 135” since 2015) covering through its 2021 reporting [1]. The academic paper gives counts through 2020 for Black men (138 unarmed among 1,636) but does not publish a simple annual breakdown in the snippets provided [2]. The Washington Post and Mapping Police Violence maintain incident‑level databases that can be queried to produce year‑by‑year counts, but those raw yearly numbers are not quoted directly in the search results you supplied [3] [4].
4. Classification disputes and context that change counts
Counts of “unarmed” are contested. Critics argue databases sometimes label people as “unarmed” despite witnesses or police alleging threatening behaviors, which can change interpretation and totals; a critique of the WaPo database notes reclassifications and contextual debates that can reduce the number of strictly “unarmed” cases when additional information is considered [7]. Academic and policy researchers note differences by age, region and mental‑health indicators that affect how cases are categorized and interpreted [8] [9]. These methodological choices explain variation between published aggregates.
5. Broader trends and what the numbers mean
Reporting shows overall police killings remain substantial — roughly 900–1,100 fatal shootings per year in some estimates — and that unarmed killings comprise a minority of those but are highly visible and consequential [10] [3]. The New York Times and Mother Jones analyses indicate patterns: unarmed killings declined in some years while total killings shifted, with armed victims rising in certain recent years [11] [12]. Scholars link police killings of unarmed Black people to measurable public‑health effects, including increases in mental‑health harms and suicidal behavior among Black youth, relying on Mapping Police Violence counts [5].
6. Takeaway and how to get precise annual counts
If you need a precise, year‑by‑year tally of unarmed Black people killed by police from 2015 to the present, the most direct route is to query the incident‑level datasets maintained by the Washington Post’s Fatal Force and Mapping Police Violence and apply a consistent “unarmed” definition; the sources above show those datasets are the basis for the published aggregates and studies cited [3] [4] [2]. Be prepared for contested classifications: critics and some analyses document reclassification disputes that will affect any final per‑year numbers [7] [9].
Limitations: I relied only on the documents you provided. Available sources do not present a single, authoritative year‑by‑year count in the supplied snippets; they do, however, converge on aggregate magnitudes [1] [2] [3].