The Washington Post, Investigation: [Fatal] Police Shootings [in 2015 in the US] The database is updated regularly. 2015. About this story: “How The Washington Post is examining police shootings in the U.S.” 30 June 2015. “The Washington Post is compiling a database of every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty in 2015.”
Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.
Winner of the 2015 George Polk Award for National Reporting.
The Post is tracking more than a dozen details about each killing — including the race of the deceased, the circumstances of the shooting, and whether the person was armed — by culling local news reports and monitoring independent databases such as Killed by Police and Fatal Encounters. In some cases, The Post conducted additional reporting. The Post is documenting only shootings in which a police officer, while on duty, shot and killed a civilian — circumstances that most closely parallel the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The Post is not tracking deaths of people in custody, fatal shootings by off-duty officers or deaths in which police gunfire did not kill the individual.