First and foremost, what this diary isn't: it isn't a discussion of the demographics of people shot and killed by the police. I'd love to present that data. But so would plenty of other people. There's no central reporting of who cops shoot or even kill, nor anything like a reliable third-party repository of that information. However, it should surprise no one that there is fairly detailed tracking of who kills cops, and when, and how. There was a little discussion of this earlier, but compiling the racial demographics is a pain, so no one did.
So that's what this diary examines: police officers shot to death in 2014, and who shot them.
Some caveats before we really get going. I've identified "shooters" based on media or law enforcement reports naming them as such. Many of these shooters are dead, either by police or their own hand. Those who are in custody may or may not have been charged with anything at this point, and (given the time frame) almost certainly have not gone to trial. Their inclusion in this list should not be construed as a claim of guilt of any particular crime; all suspects are innocent until proven guilty. Also, race isn't strictly defined, and is rarely explicitly reported. Absent media identifying race outright, I determined the race of both the officers and the shooters involved by the "extremely scientific" process of looking at their pictures. As with many other sources of demographic data, I haven't tried to distinguish between non-Hispanic white and Hispanic. Any errors in racial determination are likely mine, and I'll make corrections if needed.
If I were a better diarist, I'd have provided citations to all the local news sources used to compile this, but it didn't occur to me until I was nearly done, so I didn't. Mea culpa.
This list includes a couple of victims who might not be thought of as "police officers" by the general public: one US Navy Master-at-Arms (mostly referred to as a "sailor" in the media), and one US Department of Agriculture law enforcement officer. Members of the law enforcement community consider those positions to be police officers, and I see no reason not to do likewise here. Unlike the data source, this list does not include Michael J. Seversen; although he died in 2014 of the complications of a gunshot wound received while serving as a police officer, that shooting occurred in 1991.
Officer |
Race |
Shooter |
Race |
Edwin O. Roman-Acevedo |
white |
Jan Rivera-Ledoux |
white |
Christopher Smith |
white |
Curtis Wade Holley |
white |
Justin Winebrenner |
white |
Kenan Ivery |
black |
Matthew Chism |
white |
Joshua Brown |
white |
Shaun Richard Diamond |
white |
David Martinez |
white |
Michael David Davis, Jr. |
white |
Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamontes |
white |
Danny Oliver |
white |
Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamontes |
white |
Michael Joe Naylor |
white |
Dan Higgins |
white |
Michael Norris |
white |
Christopher Keith Calmer |
white |
Bryon Keith Dickson II |
white |
Eric Frein |
white |
Joseph Matuskovic |
white |
Michael Oswald |
white |
Jason E. Harwood |
white |
Ross Preston Lane |
white |
Nickolaus E. Schultz |
white |
Michael Hrnciar |
white |
Daryl Pierson |
white |
Thomas Johnson III |
black |
Geniel Amaro-Fantauzzi |
white |
William Vázquez Tirado |
white |
Michael Pimentel |
white |
Joshua Manuel Lopez |
white |
Scott Patrick |
white |
Brian George Fitch, Sr. |
white |
Melvin Santiago |
white |
Lawrence Campbell |
black |
Jeffrey Brady Westerfield |
white |
Carl Le'Ellis Blount, Jr. |
black |
Perry W. Renn |
white |
Major Davis, Jr. |
black |
Allen Bares, Jr. |
white |
Quintylan Richard |
black |
Lee Dixon |
white |
David Risner |
white |
Alyn Beck |
white |
Jerad Miller |
white |
Igor Soldo |
white |
Jerad Miller and Amanda Miller |
white |
Kevin Dorian Jordan |
black |
Michael Dwayne Bowman |
white |
Brian Jones |
white |
James Andrew Brown |
white |
Jair Cabrera |
white |
Elijah Loren Arthur, Sr. |
white |
Stephen Arkell |
white |
Michael Nolan |
white |
Charles Dinwiddie |
white |
Marvin Lewis Guy |
black |
Gabriel Rich |
white |
Nathaniel Kangas |
Native American |
Patrick Scott Johnson |
white |
Nathaniel Kangas |
Native American |
Alexander Thalmann |
white |
Bryan Stallings |
black |
David W. Smith |
white |
James Clark |
white |
Mark Mayo |
black |
Jeffrey Tyrone Savage |
black |
Robert German |
white |
Brandon Goode and/or Alexandria Hollinghurst |
white |
Ricky Del Fiorentino |
white |
Ricardo Antonio Chaney |
white |
Jason Crisp |
white |
Troy Whisnant |
white |
Joaquín Correa-Ortega |
white |
no information available |
John Hobbs |
white |
William R. Thornton |
white |
Jonathan Scott Pine |
white |
Benjamin Holtermann |
Asian |
Cory Wride |
white |
Jose Angel Garcia-Juaregui |
white |
Carlos Rivera-Vega |
white |
Alexis Sanchez Agostini |
white |
So, what can we make of this? There were, by this count, 42 fatal shootings of police officers in 2014. Three events involved the deaths of two officers. One of the (three!) officers killed in Puerto Rico doesn't have a clearly attributed shooter in any sources I could find (although I believe all the suspects involved were Hispanic whites, I've opted not to assume). As a result, there are 38 shooters -- more or less (treating Robert German's death as having been caused by either one of the two people involved, and attributing both
Las Vegas shooting deaths solely to Jerad Miller mostly out of convenience).
The US Census Bureau estimates that, as of 2013, 13.2% of the US population is black (although a 12% figure, presumably from a different source, is widely cited). Nine of the shooters -- 23.7% -- were black. Even considering the margin of error associated with small sample sizes (5-6% for the given data), it does appear that blacks were somewhat more likely to fatally shoot police officers this year than would be expected by pure racial demographics alone. Still, this is far below the ratio of blacks in the prison population: the Federal Bureau of Prisons currently shows a staggering 37.4% of the prison population is black.
Fewer that 5% of the slain officers were black. Regardless of confounding factors, this is far less than would be expected by population percentages. My first thought was that this indicates a pervasive under-representation of blacks in police forces, but at least the Washington Post believes that, on average anyway, that's not really the case.
It is tough to draw firm conclusions. As with everything, more and better data is needed to examine trends and make reasonable theories about causes. How many of the white cops killed by white shooters are from small towns or rural areas that are predominately white to begin with (like Eric Frein's killing of Bryon Dickson in 91.8% white Blooming Grove Township, PA)? To what degree did indirect or institutional racism escalate issues with black shooters (including the biases of the War on Drugs in general ... and the Marvin Guy shooting as a particular example)?
I don't have answers to these questions, or others. But this is a place to start, to see the numbers and start to think about the issues ... another reason why the other side of the equation, information about those killed by the police, needs to be made equally readily available.