Priorities

The Washington Post maintains a database of all police-related shootings. It’s the database nearly everyone uses when quoting statistics about police violence. However, it only contains shootings. So, for example, George Floyd isn’t in their database.

According to their data, there have been two instances since May 25th (George Floyd’s death) where someone who was unarmed and not attacking was shot by police. One white female and one black male. Though classified as unarmed, the white female allegedly wouldn’t exit her vehicle, claimed to have a gun and threatened to shoot the officers. But, I’m going to count her as “unarmed” and “not attacking” anyway.

Interestingly, Jacob Blake doesn’t appear in their database, though other shootings since then are in the database. But, the body cam video clearly shows that he was acting violently so I’m going to count him as “attacking”. Since he technically didn’t have a weapon in hand (that I could see), I’m going to consider him “unarmed”. Feel free to consider him as “unarmed and not attacking” if you wish. It won’t change the point I’m about to make below.

Two people. Three if you want to count Jacob Blake.

Below is the list of Law Enforcement Officers who died in the line of duty, as the result of violence, since May 25th, 2020 up to the date of this post (August 31, 2020). I encourage everyone to visit the Officer Down Memorial Page (https://www.odmp.org/) to read their stories.