Title: Police shootings myth: Unarmed Black Americans don't face an epidemic
Headings: There is no epidemic of fatal police shootings against unarmed Black Americans
There is no epidemic of fatal police shootings against unarmed Black Americans
Ideally officers would never need to take anyone's life. But the data on police killings doesn't support reducing or abolishing law enforcement.
Improve — don't abolish — police
A fully-functioning police force

Content: The number of unarmed Black shooting victims is down 63% from 2015, when the database began. There are about 7,300 Black homicide victims a year. The 14 unarmed victims in fatal police shootings would comprise only 0.2% of that total. Ideally, officers would never take anyone’s life in the course of their duties. But given the number of arrests they make each year ( around 10 million) and the number of deadly-weapons attacks on officers ( an average of 27 per day in just two-thirds of the nation’s police departments, according to a 2014 analysis), it is not clear that these 1,000 civilian shooting deaths suggest that law enforcement is out of control. Tried and failed: Don't abolish the police. It didn't work for 1960s communes and it won't work for us. Nevertheless, we can do better. Cops are desperate for more hands-on tactical training, de-escalation practice, and techniques to control stress.