Police usage of deadly force in the United States
police_shootings.RdA dataset containing records on every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty since Jan. 1, 2015.
Format
A data frame with 5259 rows and 10 variables:
- manner_of_death
How the victim died. Either shot or shot and tasered.
- armed
Indicates that the victim was armed with some sort of implement that a police officer believed could inflict harm. One of unarmed, undetermined, unknown, or a text description of the item with which the victim was armed.
- age
The age of the victim.
- gender
The gender of the victim. Uses a binary classification method (e.g. male or female). Identifies victims by the gender they identify with if reports indicate that it differs from their biological sex.
- race
Identifies the victim as either White (non-Hispanic), Black (non-Hispanic), Asian, Native American, Hispanic, Other, or None.
- state
Two letter postal code abbreviation.
- signs_of_mental_illness
News reports have indicated the victim had a history of mental health issues, expressed suicidal intentions or was experiencing mental distress at the time of the shooting.
- threat_level
A subjective label used to identify the severity of the threat faced by the police office. The attack category is meant to flag the highest level of threat. The other and undetermined categories represent all remaining cases. Other includes many incidents where officers or others faced significant threats.
- flee
News reports have indicated the victim was moving away from officers. Coded as fleeing on foot, fleeing by car, or not fleeing.
- body_camera
News reports have indicated an officer was wearing a body camera and it may have recorded some portion of the incident.