More kids are killed in urban violence while going to school or walking to the playground than black people are killed by police
Executive summary
Available data show substantial numbers of children and juveniles harmed both by police shootings and by broader urban/gun violence, but the sources provided do not directly compare “kids killed while going to school or walking to the playground” with “Black people killed by police.” Johns Hopkins and related reporting document 317 juveniles shot by police from 2015–2020 (one‑third fatal) [1] and a larger study counted 10,308 police‑involved shootings (2015–2020) with 979 fatal on average annually across injuries/fatalities [2]. Mapping Police Violence and Washington Post databases track total police killings but the exact figures requested are not in the available reporting [3] [4].
1. What the sources actually measure — different datasets, different populations
Researchers use different collections: Mapping Police Violence compiles comprehensive police‑killing counts [3], the Washington Post maintains a police shootings database of on‑duty fatal shootings [4], and Johns Hopkins researchers manually reviewed the Gun Violence Archive to measure juvenile injuries and deaths from police shootings (finding 317 juveniles shot 2015–2020) [1] [2]. These datasets address overlapping but not identical phenomena, so simple comparisons can mislead unless you match definitions and timeframes [3] [4] [2].
2. What we know about children shot by police
A Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions study found 317 juveniles under 18 were shot by police from 2015–2020, with roughly one‑third of those incidents fatal [1]. The broader Johns Hopkins/Bloomberg School work reviewed 10,308 police‑involved shootings from 2015–2020 and estimated an annual average of 1,769 people injured in police shootings, with 979 fatally injured per year in that period [2]. These are national totals that include adults and minors; the Hopkins juvenile count is a focused subset [1] [2].
3. What we know about police killings by race
Aggregated trackers show racial disparities: Black people make up a disproportionate share of police killings relative to their population share — for example, one source reports Black people comprise about 25%–27% of people killed by police while being roughly 13% of the U.S. population [5]. Mapping Police Violence and the Washington Post databases are commonly used to quantify these racial patterns [3] [4].
4. What the sources do not provide — the specific comparison you asked for
Available sources do not mention a direct, apples‑to‑apples statistic comparing “kids killed in urban violence while going to school or walking to the playground” with “Black people killed by police.” There is reporting that “the number one cause of death for children is guns” in some commentary [6], and separate counts of juvenile police shootings [1], but no source in this set measures child deaths in the precise contexts you describe (walking to school or playground) and directly contrasts them to police killings of Black people (not found in current reporting).
5. Why common comparisons can mislead: scope, definitions, intent
Comparisons across different harms require matching timeframes, intent, and definitions. “Urban violence” child fatalities often come from homicide or unintentional shootings recorded in public‑health or crime datasets, while “people killed by police” is a law‑enforcement use‑of‑force category tracked by databases with different inclusion rules (e.g., on‑duty shootings vs. deaths in custody) [4] [2]. The datasets cited here explicitly warn about voluntary reporting and inconsistent death‑certificate practices, which affect completeness [2].
6. Competing narratives and implicit agendas in reporting
Advocacy groups and research collaboratives emphasize police accountability and racial disparities using Mapping Police Violence and Post data [3] [4] [5]. Public‑health researchers highlight youth injuries and behavioral‑health call risks leading to police shootings and push for alternative responses [2]. Journalistic or advocacy statements that reduce complex phenomena to a single comparative sentence risk amplifying a partisan point without matching analytic rigor; the datasets themselves signal limitations and differing missions [3] [4] [2].
7. How to get a defensible comparison
To answer your original claim rigorously, one needs: (a) a dataset enumerating child homicides/killings in the specified contexts (walking to school/playground) by timeframe and location; (b) a matched count of police killings of Black people for the same timeframe and geography using the same inclusion criteria; and (c) transparent methods linking incidents to context. The current sources provide juvenile police‑shooting counts and broader police‑killing and racial breakdowns but lack the specific “walking to school/playground” child‑death categorization and a direct juxtaposition (not found in current reporting) [1] [4] [2] [3].
If you want, I can: draft exact queries and datasets to request from public‑health or law‑enforcement trackers, or search additional sources to attempt the direct comparison with consistent definitions. Which would you prefer?