Researchers from the University of Washington have determined that over half of the deaths due to police violence were wrongly attributed to other causes from 1980 to 2019. Their findings were peer reviewed and published yesterday by the medical journal Lancet. The undercounting means that of the roughly 31,000 deaths due to police violence in that span, roughly 17,000 were attributed to another cause of death in reporting to Federal data bases. The study also found that black men were killed by police at a disproportionately high level, as was the mislabeling of their cause of death as something other than police violence:
"The study underscores a grim reality: Despite years of scrutiny, criticism, protests and calls for reform, no government agency tracks how often law enforcement officers in America kill people. Since 2015, The Washington Post has been counting how often on-duty police shoot and kill people. But there is no comprehensive federal attempt to keep track of these deaths or other uses of force by law enforcement, including chokeholds and nonfatal shootings. One of the study’s authors called the deaths poorly catalogued and preventable, and an expert said the lack of meaningful tracking of these deaths underscores the deep-rootedness of systemic racism." (our emphasis)
The most famous recent example of this regards the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by former police officer Derek Chauvin. The initial police report and medical examiner's finding were that Floyd died of drug use and complications, until video evidence emerged showing Chauvin choking Floyd by kneeling on his neck for an extended period.
The researchers noted that often the misidentification is done by medical examiners embedded in police departments and subject to pressure. They called for greater independence of medical examiners and coroners from police departments, and for whistleblower protection for them.
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