{"id":9075,"date":"2026-04-01T12:44:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T17:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/fatal-police-violence-may-have-declined-for-the-first-time-in-years\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T12:44:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T17:44:55","slug":"fatal-police-violence-may-have-declined-for-the-first-time-in-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/fatal-police-violence-may-have-declined-for-the-first-time-in-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Fatal police violence may have declined for the first time in years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A
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A Lawrence Township police vehicle sits near traffic cones in New Jersey. The state had one of the lowest rates of police killings in 2025, at 0.08 per 100,000 people, according to a new report from Campaign Zero, a research group that advocates for the end of police violence. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the first time in years, there are early signs that police killings in the United States may be declining \u2014 after deaths reached a record high in 2024 and amid intensified scrutiny of law enforcement tactics nationwide.<\/p>\n

The findings come as photos and videos of aggressive law enforcement \u2014 particularly involving federal immigration agents \u2014 have dominated<\/a> headlines and social media. The new numbers don\u2019t include deaths during immigration enforcement, and federal agents operate under different authorities and standards than state and local police. Nevertheless, some experts say the heightened visibility has sharpened public attention on the use of force.<\/p>\n

New data from Campaign Zero, a research group that advocates for the end of police violence, shows a slight drop in police killings in 2025 compared with 2024.<\/p>\n

At least 1,314 people were killed by police in 2025 \u2014 the first annual decrease since 2019, according to the group\u2019s report<\/a>. By comparison, at least 1,383 people were killed by law enforcement in 2024, the highest number recorded since the group began tracking the data.<\/p>\n

Some policing experts caution that it\u2019s too early to say whether the drop is the beginning of a longer-term decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to have a couple of good years, and you want to begin to gather why we think these things are happening,\u201d said Tracie Keesee, co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity and an associate professor of public safety and justice at the University of Virginia School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Keesee has 25 years of law enforcement experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do we not know?\u201d she said. \u201cWhat\u2019s the data not telling us? I think that\u2019s also important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts point to a range of possible explanations for the decrease in police-related deaths, including ongoing staffing shortages that have resulted in fewer officers on patrol, expanded use of de-escalation training and stricter use-of-force policies, and the uneven rollout of changes adopted by police departments in the years following the 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

Lower crime rates nationwide \u2014 including a decline in homicides \u2014 is another possible factor, some experts say, as it may have reduced the number of high-risk encounters between police and civilians.<\/p>\n

The uncertainty reflects long-standing gaps in national policing data. There is no comprehensive federal government database tracking police use of force, leaving the public to rely on independent efforts such as Campaign Zero\u2019s Mapping Police Violence database<\/a>, which compiles incidents from public records, media reports and other verifiable sources.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Trump administration shut down<\/a> the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, a system that tracked misconduct by federal law enforcement officers.<\/p>\n

The available data that is maintained by the federal government is collected by the FBI through its Uniform Crime Reporting system, which began tracking use-of-force incidents in 2019. The data relies on voluntary, self-reported submissions from police departments.<\/p>\n

Another widely cited effort, The Washington Post\u2019s Fatal Force database<\/a>, tracked fatal police shootings between 2015 and 2024, but stopped updating the numbers in 2025.<\/p>\n

While the Fatal Force database focused solely on police shootings, the Mapping Police Violence database takes a broader approach, including deaths involving other types of force as well as some accidental deaths \u2014 differences that can shape overall counts and complicate comparisons.<\/p>\n

Researchers say these gaps are not just a data problem but also a barrier to understanding use of force itself. The gaps make it difficult to study when and why force is used and to evaluate which policies \u2014 whether legislative or within police departments \u2014 are the most effective in reducing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere really is a significant misconception about what use of force looks like, and it\u2019s largely because of the fact that we just don\u2019t know what leads to use-of-force incidents,\u201d said Logan Kennedy, an assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at East Carolina University. \u201cThere\u2019s not data out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Variation across states<\/h4>\n

State-level data from Campaign Zero shows wide variation not only in how often police kill civilians, but also in the types of encounters that turn fatal.<\/p>\n

Some states consistently had far lower rates of police killings than others. Rhode Island was the only state that had no police killings in 2025, according to the report.<\/p>\n

New Jersey had the second-lowest rate in the country in 2025, with 0.08 police killings per 100,000 people. That\u2019s a 48% decrease from the state\u2019s average of the previous 12 years, according to the report.<\/p>\n

By contrast, New Mexico had the highest rate of police killings per capita, with 1.36 police killings per 100,000 people, according to the report.<\/p>\n

The types of incidents that lead to deadly force also vary. In some places, fatal encounters are more likely to stem from reported violent crimes, while in others they more often begin with routine traffic stops or calls related to mental health crises or welfare checks, according to Stateline\u2019s analysis of the data.<\/p>\n

Some researchers and policing experts say those differences may reflect a mix of factors, including training standards, department policies and whether states have invested in alternatives to traditional policing \u2014 such as crisis response teams that handle mental health calls.<\/p>\n

Since 2021, every officer in New Jersey has been required to undergo de-escalation training known as ICAT, or Integrating Communication, Assessment and Tactics.<\/p>\n

ICAT training teaches patrol officers how to handle tense situations \u2014 especially those involving people in crisis \u2014 by slowing encounters down, communicating clearly and using safer alternatives to force. The program was developed by the Police Executive Research Forum, a national nonprofit focused on policing standards, about a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last 10 years, we have seen the evolution of police training, especially as it relates to de-escalation,\u201d said Chuck Wexler, the group\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n

ICAT has been implemented in roughly 1,500 law enforcement agencies nationwide, Wexler said. He added that it may have contributed to New Jersey\u2019s significant decline in use-of-force deaths in 2025, though he acknowledged it would not have been the sole factor.<\/p>\n

At least 12 cities with populations over 250,000 had zero police killings in 2025, according to the report. Departments in two of those cities, Long Beach, California, and Minneapolis, have received ICAT training, Wexler said. Police in Roanoke, Virginia, and Spokane, Washington, reported no officer-involved shootings in 2025, and were also trained under ICAT.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t change your training and your tactics and how you communicate with people, you\u2019re not going to see the change in the areas that you can,\u201d Wexler said.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
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If you don\u2019t change your training and your tactics and how you communicate with people, you’re not going to see the change in the areas that you can.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2013 Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Some states, including California and Washington, have adopted stricter use-of-force laws in recent years, allowing officers to use deadly force only as a last resort. Others have expanded certain programs aimed at reducing police involvement in nonviolent situations, such as when someone is in the midst of a mental health crisis and might be better helped by a specially trained social worker than a responding law enforcement officer.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s authors found no single policy directly linked to lower rates of police killings.<\/p>\n

The variation, some policing experts say, highlights how uneven changes to policing standards and procedures have been implemented since Floyd\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Some states and localities have pursued sweeping changes, while others have taken a more limited approach. Some experts say it can take years for a policy or training change to be implemented, take hold and begin to shift broader trends.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also unclear whether the momentum behind policing policy changes has been sustained across much of the country \u2014 and to what extent states and localities have maintained those changes or rolled them back, experts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cYears later, we don\u2019t really know. Did those reforms actually go into effect?\u201d said Kennedy, of East Carolina University. \u201cAsking questions about whether or not they\u2019re persisting or eroding \u2013\u2013 it makes a significant difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disparities persist<\/h4>\n

The impact of police violence also remains deeply uneven \u2014 both nationally and within states.<\/p>\n

Black Americans continue to be killed by police at disproportionately high rates compared with white Americans, a disparity that holds across nearly every state analyzed, according to the report. Nationwide, Black people are killed at more than twice the rate of white people, the report found, with even wider gaps in some states.<\/p>\n

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Hispanic people were also more likely than white people to be killed by police in 2025, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Even if 2025 does mark the start of a new downward trend in police-involved killings, some experts say national figures can obscure what\u2019s happening on the ground.<\/p>\n

The decline does not mean all communities are experiencing the same level of change, according to Keesee, of the Center for Policing Equity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question I always ask (is), \u2018Police killings are down for who?\u2019\u201d Keesee said. \u201cWhen you still have racial disparities, that means it might not be perceived that killings are down, especially if you\u2019re in communities where a lot of these things seem to take place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

This story was originally produced by Stateline<\/a>, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Missouri Independent, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Lawrence Township police vehicle sits near traffic cones in New Jersey. The state had one of the lowest rates of police killings in 2025, at 0.08 per 100,000 people, according to a new report from Campaign Zero, a research group that advocates for the end of police violence. 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The state had one of the lowest rates of police killings in 2025, at 0.08 per 100,000 people, according to a new report from Campaign Zero, a research group that advocates for the end of police violence. 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