This Map Shows the Exact Location of Every Black Person Killed by Cops in 2014

News & Politics

A chilling and precise reminder of how little black lives often matter.

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

On the heels of the brutal murder of Walter Scott, the lack of a definitive count of the number of police killings of civilians each year seems like nothing short of an outrage. In response, We The Protesters — a national group that has emerged from the activism following the Ferguson, Missouri, killing of Michael Brown — recently unveiled a resource that tallies the numbers the Justice Department fails to. The interactive map plots the exact locations of hundreds of African-Americans killed by police officers in 2014. Per the website:

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown Jr. was murdered by Officer Darren Wilson, sparking nationwide protests against police killings of black people. This map, a project of WeTheProtesters.org, bears witness to the black men and women who have been killed at the hands of law enforcement in 2014. And while a focus on police killings cannot capture the full scale of the violence our communities face at the hands of police, we hope this data helps communities better understand the problem and begin to make progress towards addressing it.

The site notes that of the 1,148 people killed by cops last year, 26 percent were black. (That’s double the representation of black folks among the U.S.’s population.) Other figures the website notes:

At least 100 unarmed black people were killed by police in 2014, more than any other race.

Where you live matters. A black person in St. Louis is 5x more likely to be killed by police than a black person in New York City. A black person in Florida is more than 2.5x more likely to be killed by police than a black person in Georgia.

It’s not about crime rates. Despite the fact that Newark and St. Louis have similar crime rates and demographics, police killed 4 black people in St. Louis and zero in Newark in 2014.
The map is below.
http://samswey.cartodb.com/viz/5815277e-bc86-11e4-84e3-0e4fddd5de28/public_map