I calculated the total number of police shootings and the annual percentage change from 2015 to 2024.

To do this, I used Excel. First, I applied the YEAR function to extract the year from the date data. Then, I used the COUNTIF function to count the number of police shootings for each year. Finally, I calculated the percentage change using the formula:

(Current Year’s Count−Previous Year’s Count)/Previous Year’s Count

Police shootings decreased slightly in 2016 (-3.62%) but have risen almost every year since. Small increases occurred from 2017 to 2019, followed by a sharper rise from 2020 onward, peaking in 2023 (+6.11%). In 2024, the trend continued but slowed (+0.77%), reaching 1,173 shootings. Overall, the data shows a steady upward trend, with the most significant growth in recent years.​

YEAR	NUMBER	%Change
2015	995
2016	959	-3.62%
2017	984	2.61%
2018	992	0.81%
2019	994	0.20%
2020	1021	2.72%
2021	1050	2.84%
2022	1097	4.48%
2023	1164	6.11%
2024	1173	0.77%
TOTAL	10429

 

To determine which month had the most shootings overall across all years, I used a PivotTable in Excel. The results showed that March has the most shootings overall, with 936 incidents reported.

 

Then checked the descriptive statistics of the counts of fatal shootings:

• Maximum: 1173
• Average: 1042.9
• Median: 1008
• Standard deviation: 76.62
• Skewness : 0.918
• Kurtosis: -0.6049

Next week I will check to see if there are regional differences in year-over-year changes, gender, race.