More Cops Have Been Charged for Fatal Shootings in 2015 Than in Any of the Past 10 Years

Not a single police officer has been convicted of murder or manslaughter this year.

Image via Jamelle Bouie

When President Barack Obama was recently forced to state that there is quite simply "no contradiction between us caring about our law enforcement officers and also making sure that our laws are applied fairly," something that should have been glaringly obvious for all Americans, the national debate surrounding the necessity for immediate police reform didn't so much deflate as it did kick itself swiftly into overdrive.

As previously debunked on multiple occasions, the "war on cops" myth has dangerously prevailed thanks to a distorted perpetuation of the average American's everyday reality. Thankfully, the nation's collective attitude toward institutionalized police brutality seems to be slowly but surely nearing some level of progress. According to data gathered and analyzed by the Wall Street Journal, more American police officers have been charged for fatal shootings in 2015 than at any other point in the past decade.

12 police officers have been charged with manslaughter or murder for on-duty shootings in 2015, according to Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip M. Stinson. This figure places the 2015 average for such charges at more than double that of the 2005 rate of five officers a year. However, these numbers sadly don't equate to more convictions, as not a single officer has been convicted of such charges in 2015:

Police advocates [argue] that prosecutors are bending to political pressure by bringing questionable cases to trial. They say the outcome of recent cases proves their point.

For a thorough and continually updated account of the number of American citizens killed by police officers, consult the Guardian's groundbreaking dedication to providing those raw statistics here.

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