Key findings from AP’s investigation into police force that isn’t supposed to be lethal
Every day, police in the US rely on common force techniques that, unlike weapons, are intended to stop people without killing them. But if abused, these tactics can still end in death.
Over the past decade, more than 1,000 people have died after police subdued them with physical restraints, stun weapons, body attacks and other means not intended to kill, an investigation led by The Associated Press found. In hundreds of cases, officers were not trained or followed best safety practices for this force, creating a recipe for death.
Medical officials cited law enforcement as the cause or contributor to about half of the deaths. In many other cases, a significant amount of police force went unmentioned and was blamed on drugs or pre-existing health conditions.
These cases include George Floyd, whose 2020 death under an officer’s body weight led to a national reckoning on policing. And while Floyd’s encounter was coincidentally caught on video, capturing his last words, “I can’t breathe,” many others in the United States have escaped notice.
Here are the conclusions from the AP’s investigation, conducted in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs at the University of Maryland and Arizona State University, and FRONTLINE (PBS):
The deadly encounters took place almost everywhere, according to an analysis of a database created by AP. Big cities, suburbs and rural America. Red states and blue states. Restaurants, assisted living centers and, usually, in or near the homes of those who have died.
The deceased came from all walks of life: a poet, a nurse, a saxophonist in a mariachi band, a truck driver, a sales executive, a rodeo clown and even a few off-duty law enforcement officers. All but 3% of the dead were men. Most were between thirty and forty years old. The youngest was only 15, the oldest 95.
However, the toll fell disproportionately on black Americans. They made up a third of those who died, despite representing only 12% of the US population. Others who suffered most were those affected by a medical, mental health or drug emergency, a group particularly susceptible to violence even when applied lightly.
When incidents become chaotic and officers make split-second decisions to use force, “people die,” said Peter Moskos, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former Baltimore police officer. “The only way to get back to zero is to abolish the police,” he added, “and that won’t save lives.”
When the force came, it could be sudden and extreme. Other times the force was minimal, and yet people still died, sometimes from drug overdoses or a combination of factors.
In about 30% of cases, police intervened to stop people who were injuring or posing a danger to others. But about 25% of those killed did not threaten anyone or committed at most minor offenses, according to AP’s review of the cases. The rest involved other non-violent situations involving people who police said were trying to resist arrest or flee.
What led to the force was sometimes unclear. In more than 100 cases, police withheld key details or witnesses disputed the officer’s story — and there was no body camera footage available to provide clarity.
In hundreds of cases, officers repeated mistakes that experts and trainers spent years trying to eliminate. Perhaps the best example is how officers were warned that it is dangerous to hold someone face down in what is known as the prone position.
Many police experts agree that pressing on their chest for too long or with too much weight can cause a person to stop breathing, and the Department of Justice has warned along those lines since 1995.
Reporters identified dozens and dozens of cases in which officers ignored people who told them they were struggling for air or even about to die, often uttering the words, “I can’t breathe.” But because there are no standard national rules, what police learn about the risks of coercive measures is often left to states and individual departments.
Some officers involved in fatal crashes testified that they were assured that prone positioning was never fatal, AP found, while many others were trained to roll people onto their sides to ease breathing but simply did not do so.
During internal investigations, officers typically obtained permission from their departments. The AP investigation identified only 28 deaths in which officers were ultimately charged by prosecutors.
The AP and its partners focused on local police, deputies and other officers patrolling the streets or responding to emergency calls. Reporters filed nearly 7,000 requests for government documents and body camera footage, received more than 700 autopsy reports or death certificates, and in at least four dozen cases uncovered video that was never published or widely distributed.
That data led them to identify at least 1,036 deaths after police used what’s known as “less-lethal force” — an average of two per week — from 2012 through 2021.
The federal government, for its part, has struggled for years to count these deaths.
Congress began efforts to get the Justice Department to do so in 2000. The ministry has acknowledged that its data is incomplete, blames inadequate reporting from police forces and does not make existing information public.
Mortality data maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also show gaps. The AP found that when a death certificate doesn’t mention words like “police” and “law enforcement,” the CDC’s language-reading software doesn’t label the death as “legal intervention.” This means that the death data shows that police are involved in up to 34% of the deaths identified by the investigation.
Because the country has no clear idea of how many people are dying this way and why, meaningful reforms will remain difficult, Dr. Roger Mitchell Jr., a leader in the effort to improve tracking and one of the nation’s few Black chief medical examiners when he held the Washington, D.C., office from 2014 to 2021.
“Any time someone dies before their court date, or dies in an environment where it’s the federal government’s or local government’s job to take care of you,” he said, “transparency is needed . That can’t be in the dark of night.”
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This story is part of an ongoing investigation led by The Associated Press in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs and FRONTLINE (PBS). The research includes the interactive story Lethal Restraint, the database and the documentary ‘Documenting Police Use Of Force’, premiering April 30 on PBS.
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Contributing to this story were Thalia Beaty, Martha Bellisle, Jacques Billeaud, Michael Catalini, Brett Chambers, Mary Dalrymple, Trenton Daniel, Ryan J. Foley, Kristin M. Hall, Roxana Hegeman, Carla K. Johnson, Angeliki Kastanis, Denise Lavoie, Andy Lemberger, Jeff Martin, Jennifer McDermott, Brian McDonnell, Holbrook Mohr, Aaron Morrison, Sean Mussenden, Serginho Roosblad, John Seewer, Rhonda Shafner, Taylor Stevens, Mitch Weiss and Helen Wieffering.
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To view stories from journalists in the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs, go here.
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The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for criminal justice-focused reporting. This story was also supported by Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in partnership with Arnold Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/