New legislation in California seeks to reduce police shootings of civilians
The federal government does not currently have accurate records on how many civilians are killed by police officers annually in the U.S. However, since 2015, The Washington Post has been tracking police shootings of civilians nationwide. Also, the advocacy group Mapping Police Violence maintains a database of police killings of civilians. According to Mapping Police Violence, from 2013 – 2020, 98.3% of police killings of civilians have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime. The state of California has one of the highest rates of police-civilian shootings in the country. In 2018, lawmakers in California worked to create legislation to make police misconduct records available to the public and to require police departments to release body camera footage. In addition to being the most populous state in the U.S., California has more police shootings than any other state. On average, there are about 100 to 200 civilians in California who are killed by police every year. In...