Police shootings rise in 2021: report

Fatal police shootings rose last year to 1,055, the highest number recorded since 2015, according to The Washington Post’s tracker.

Police have fatally shot around 1,000 people every year since the Post began tracking the data in 2015. But last year’s total exceeds 2020, when 1,021 fatal police shootings were recorded, and the 999 people killed by police in 2019.

Of the people shot and killed by officers in 2021, 15 percent were unarmed, according to the Post’s database. And at least 14 percent struggled with mental health issues.

One percent of those fatally shot by police were juveniles, the Post reported, including 8-year-old Fanta Bility. In August, police in Sharon Hill, Pa., accidentally shot Bility while she was in a car during a high school football game. The officers, who were later fired, were responding to a shooting incident at the school.

Among the most high-profile police shootings last year was in Minnesota, where 20-year-old Daunte Wright was shot and killed by Brooklyn Center officer Kim Potter, who said she accidentally pulled out her firearm instead of her stun gun. Potter was convicted last year and is set to be sentenced on Feb. 18.

Police shootings and police-involved violence gained renewed attention in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis Police Department officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

While fatal police shootings have remained relatively level, police accountability has increased. Twenty-one officers were charged with murder or manslaughter for an on-duty shooting in 2021, the highest number recorded since 2005, NBC reported.