Spectrum

Wesley Lowery covers Black Lives Matter, law enforcement and justice for the Washington Post. He has become a national expert on police shootings. The Washington Post, for the first time in history, is keeping statistics on police shootings in the U.S. As of today, 522 citizens have been shot and killed by police in 2016. Of that group, 128 people were blacks, according to Lowery. That is about one shooting death per day of a black person by police, Lowery says. “Blacks make up between 12 and 13 percent of the population yet they account for nearly 25 percent of the deaths by police shootings,” Lowery says. “American citizens are killed by police about three times a week,” Lowery notes. In 2015, the Washington Post found 990 police shootings resulting in deaths. This year, reporters expect over 1,000 deaths, according to Lowery. By comparison, police are killed by gunshots at a rate of about one per week. Mental illness and traffic stops are two common threads to the shootings of blacks by police. Abou