In the wake of the decision by the special prosecutor to not file charges in the Aaron Bailey police action shooting, I thought it might be noteworthy to publish some of the data regarding such incidents.*

Here’s what I found, overall…

  • There have been nearly 800 police action shootings that resulted in fatalities, 14 of which occurred in the state of Indiana.
  • Mental illness played a role in 25 percent of the incidents.
  • 173 of the fatalities were fleeing the scene.
  • 758 of the fatalities were male.
  • 23 percent (184) were African-American, only 13  were unarmed.
  • In 659 instances a weapon (gun. Knife, car) was involved.
  • There were no body cams in 715 cases.

When it comes to Indiana, specifically, here’s a breakdown of those 10 police action shootings which resulted in fatalities…

  • All 14 fatalities were male.
  • Nine were white, four were African-American, one was Hispanic.
  • Four were between ages 18-29.  Five were between 30 and 44.  Five were more than 45 years old.
  • Three had mental illness issues.
  • Eight used a gun as a weapon, four used a vehicle, one was unarmed, one had a weapon that was labeled unknown.
  • Out of the nine that fled the scene, seven used a car.
  • There were no body cams in any of the incidents.
  • Only one of the police action shootings occurred in Indianapolis.

I also did a check of shootings in the last couple of years.  There were 963 nationwide in 2016, Indiana had 14.  There were 991 nationwide in 2015, 19 of which occurred in Indiana.

In 2015, 26 percent of the fatalities were black nationwide.  That number dropped down to 24 percent in 2016.  And as far as being black and unarmed goes,  there were only 38 shootings of unarmed black men reported in 2015 and 17 shootings of unarmed black men in 2016.  And only seven were fleeing the scene.

And in Indiana, there were 14 police action shootings in 2016 that resulted in fatalities, four were African-American and only one was unarmed.  In 2015,  there were 19 police action shootings that resulted in death.  Six of them were African-American and none were reported unarmed.

*All this data comes from a Washington Post database on police action shootings.