US police killed over 1,150 people so far this year: Report

Police in the United States have killed about 1,150 people as of December 15 of this year, with the largest police departments disproportionately killing at least 321 African Americans, according to data compiled by an activist group.

The group, who runs the Mapping Police Violence project, said most police departments did not provide figures on police-involved fatalities, so its data comes from three crowd-sourced databases.

Those databases include FatalEncounters.org and KilledbyPolice.net as well as research through social media, obituaries, police reports and other sources.

Forty percent of people killed by police in the country's 60 biggest police departments were black, while the African-American population in those jurisdictions was 20 percent, the report said.

The group, formed by data scientist Samuel Sinyangwe and activists Johnetta Elzie and DeRay Mckesson, said this year’s figure compares with 1,172 last year and 1,140 in 2013.

The group says it believes its database reflects 90 to 98 percent of police killings since 2013.

The project compiles data on all police killings, including gunshot, asphyxiation, vehicles and Tasers.

It also includes unintentional killings such as people who died of a medical emergency while being arrested or restrained, and off-duty police incidents.

The report also said charges against police officers who do use deadly force are very rare and that police use of lethal force is not correlated to violent crime rates.

Police killings, especially of African Americans, have sparked protests in cities across the US over the past two years.

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