U.S. 2024: HIGHEST POLICE KILL RATE IN 10 YEARS

US police killed a total of 1,364 people in 2024—8 more people than in 2023—according to data analysed by Mapping Police Violence, a project set up to 'provide accurate numbers on the number of lives taken at the hands of police' which US law enforcement and government agencies fail to do. The 2024 figure is the highest Mapping Police Violence that has been obtained since it began analysing data in 2013.

In this clip, Tiktok user @rachellapointe, a student of policing and gender-based violence, breaks down the project's 2024 data. Mapping Police Violence reports that only 11 days in 2024 did not involve US police forces klling someone. As of 24 January, of the 1,364 people police klled in 2024, 310 were Black, a 4.62 per cent year-on-year decrease but still showing a demographic overpresentation in those killed.

While making up 13 per cent of the US population, Black people made up 22.72 per cent of 2024 police k*llings. This shows that although the Jim Crow era of discriminatory laws may have ended in 1965 following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Black people continue to be disproportionately affected by the US justice system. We are systemically racially profiled and targeted in all facets of the judicial system—from policies to policing to discriminatory incarceration—in what author and civil rights activist Michelle Alexander calls 'The New Jim Crow.'

Years of mass activism calling for respecting Black people's human rights and accountability culminated in the most significant uprising in the country following police klling George Floyd in 2020. However, they have yet to yield any systemic transformation. Most police officers involved in extrajudicial kllings of unarmed Black people in the US are never charged with wrongdoing. The first Trump administration (2017-21), the Biden administration (2021-25) and both parties rejected popular demands to 'defund the police' during the George Floyd protests, instead funnelling billions of dollars to hire and arm more police, including overseeing the construction of 'Cop Cities,' police training facilities, in many US states.

Video credit: Rachel LaPointe (@rachellapointe on TikTok)

Sources:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/01/03/xymt-j03.html 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/us/police-killings-prosecution-charges.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/report-black-people-are-still-killed-police-higher-rate-groups-rcna17169 

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/study-of-fatal-and-nonfatal-shootings-by-police-reveals-racial-disparities-dispatch-risks

https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/us/police-killings-prosecution-charges.html 

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org