USA: police killed 987 people in 2017🇱🇷

US police killed nearly a thousand people in 2017, slightly more than the year before, according to a statement released Monday by The Washington Post.

In total, 987 people lost their lives under police bullets last year, against 963 in 2016 and 995 in 2015, said the newspaper which keeps a record of shootings involving police since 2015. It is based on the local press , official publications and social networks.
There is no official count in the United States as reliable or as complete.

The use of lethal force by police officers has been controversial in recent years after the death of several unarmed black men, provoking demonstrations across the country and sometimes riots.
According to the Post, nineteen unarmed black men were killed by police last year against seventeen in 2016 and 36 the year before.

The newspaper noted that the number of black men is disproportionately high among those killed by police bullets: armed or not, they accounted for 22% of the total, while black men represent only 6% of the US population .
All ethnicities combined, police shot dead 68 people last year, down from 51 in 2016 and 94 in 2015.

"The spotlight on this issue has prompted the police to be more cautious in situations with an unarmed person," Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told the newspaper.
According to the Washington Post database, 735 people who were shot were in possession of knives or firearms. In 2016, they were 693.
According to the Federal Police (FBI), 46 police officers were killed in the line of duty in 2017 compared to 66 the previous year.