Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, this week. The officers were responding to an anonymous 911 caller, who said “a black male who was selling music [CDs] and wearing a red shirt [had] threatened him with a gun,” National Public Radio reports. The story garnered national attention, protests, and a Department of Justice investigation after a bystander’s video circulated, showing the officers seemingly pinning Sterling, then shooting him at very close range. Sterling did have a gun, but didn’t reach for it during his altercation with the police, a witness told the Advocate, a Baton Rouge newspaper.
Sterling’s death brings fresh attention to the use of force by American police, particularly in their interactions with black men. When the issue first galvanized the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement, in 2013–14, there were no thorough, nationwide statistics on fatal police shootings. Throughout 2015, however, the Washington Post begancollecting such data, using public sources including news reports. In the wake of Sterling’s shooting, here’s a quick look at that data, which now spans a year and a half. The database “helps explain why outrage continues to simmer” long after protests ended in Ferguson, Missouri, as Postreporters wrote in late 2015.
[For more of this story, written by Francie Diep, go to https://psmag.com/heres-the-ra...8de89b4a9#.4qkgmwxwm]
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