click to enlarge Photo: Scott Rodgerson|Unsplash
The Washington Post has shared its database of fatal police shootings for 2022.
Police in Ohio have fatally shot 229 people since 2015, with 35 of those deaths occurring so far in 2022, according to a
database from the Washington Post. Of all of the shootings in the database, seven occurred in Cincinnati. There have been none in the Queen City this year.
Statewide, 55 of the fatal shootings involved a person experiencing a mental health crisis. Six of the fatal shootings involved teenagers under the age of 18. All but 11 of the victims were men, and at least 19 were unarmed.
A disproportionate number of the victims were Black. In Ohio, 12.36% of the population is Black, but 38% of the victims in the Post's database were Black. In Cincinnati, five victims were Black, one was white and one was not identified in the database.
Fatal shootings have been on the rise statewide, with 61 of them occurring in the past two years.
Body cam footage was only available in 27 of the fatal shootings since 2015, according to records.
Police are rarely charged in fatal shootings, but the exact number isn’t known because the database doesn’t include this information.
"Local police departments are not required to report these incidents to the federal government. Also compounding the problem: an updated FBI system for reporting data and confusion among local law enforcement about reporting responsibilities," the
Post explains in its report.
According to the data, nationwide, police shot and killed 8,015 people since 2015, with 1,084 of them occurring so far in 2022.
A version of this story originally was published by CityBeat sister newspaper Cleveland Scene.
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