Comparing Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post Fatal Police Shooting Data from 2015–2019: A Research Note

• Author: Benjamin P. Comer,Jason R. Ingram
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168211071014
• Published date: 01 June 2023
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Research Note

Comparing Fatal Encounters,

Mapping Police Violence, and

Washington Post Fatal Police

Shooting Data from 2015–2019:

A Research Note

Benjamin P. Comer

1

and Jason R. Ingram

1

Abstract

This research note empirically assessed similarities and differences among three open-source data

sets from 2015-2019. Fatal police shooting incidents were compared across Washington Post,

Mapping Police Violence, and Fatal Encounters data over a f‌ive-year period. One-way ANOVAs, bivari-

ate correlations, and proportional percentage differences were used to examine mean differences,

correlational strength, and yearly percentage difference trends. No signif‌icant mean differences

were observed between Fatal Encounters,Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post. With one

exception, bivariate correlations between all three data source dyads were consistently strong.

Percentage difference comparisons among data source dyads, however, revealed that the sources

are becoming more dissimilar in their reporting of fatal shootings over time . Our results comple-

ment existing literature that has compared open-source police shooting data to government

sources and suggest that the three data sources were strongly associated with one another from

2015-2019. Increasing differences between sources, however, necessitate continued inspection of

the data across the various open-source platforms over time.

Keywords

police shootings, fatal encounters, fatal force, police violence, data discrepancies

For decades, academics, practitioners, and the public have sought to determine the number of fatal

police shootings of civilians each year. Continual calls have been made to establish a national data-

base of police use of force (Alpert, 2016; Fyfe, 2002; Holmes, 2020; Kane, 2007; Klinger, 2008;

Klinger et al., 2016; Shane, 2018). The FBI has worked to create the National Use of Force Data

Collection platform to provide national estimates of police use of force. However, reporting is

1

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX

Corresponding Author:

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State University, 816 17th St, Huntsville, TX 77340.

Email: bpc016@shsu.edu

Research Note

Criminal Justice Review

2023, Vol. 48(2) 249-261

© 2022 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/07340168211071014

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