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California Police Killed More People Than In Any Other State In The Last Year
Police shot and killed a homeless man on Skid Row earlier this year (Video by Anthony Blackburn posted to Facebook)
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It's now been a year since Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in the Midwest. Since then, police have killed over 1,000 people in the U.S., that we know of, and California is in the lead.According to VICE, at least 1,083 people in the U.S. have been killed by police in the last year. Some states have had fewer than 10 deaths at the hands of police. Vermont and Rhode Island had zero, while North Dakota had only one. Three states, however, have seen over 50 deaths at the hands of law enforcement: California at a whopping 176, Texas at 110 and Florida tallying at 80. Five cities had over 10 deaths. They include Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Antonio, Oklahoma City and New York.
Most of these people killed in the last year were white; however, black Americans are 3.28 times more likely to be killed by police than white people and 2.28 times more likely to be killed by police than any other race.
VICE found 22 cases where officers were either indicted or charged, and 257 cases where the deaths were ruled accidental or officers were deemed justified. The rest remain under investigation.
A look back at L.A. over the past year reveals a number of these cases. A 25-year-old, unarmed black man named Ezell Ford was shot and killed by police on August 11, 2014. The LAPD Commission ultimately found one officer justified and the other not in Ford's shooting death. A young, unarmed homeless man in Venice named Brandon Glenn was shot and killed in May. Another homeless man named Charly Keunang was shot and killed on Skid Row in March. Fears Morad was a 20-year-old college student shot and killed by Long Beach police while allegedly have a bad reaction to hallucinogenic mushrooms. Two LAPD Sergeants were just cleared in the death of Omar Abrego, who died the morning after a violent arrest in South L.A.
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As for Brown's death that took place on August 9, 2014, former police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, resulting in days of unrest. Protests sprung up around the nation, including here in L.A., and the Black Lives Matter movement began. Darren Wilson was not indicted. Activists have been calling for change in the way the police interact with American citizens, especially black Americans, but in that year, there have been other over 1,000 other deaths across the nation.
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