Murder Rates Could Hit Record Lows This Year, but Killings by Police Are Rising Highlight

Meanwhile, while Americans as a whole are killing less, America’s police are doing the opposite. The number of people fatally shot by cops has increased every year since 2020—in 2024, officers killed at least 1,226 people nationwide, an 18 percent increase over 2019, according to an analysis by the New York Times that drew on data from the Washington Post and the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence.