Some notes:
* The Guardian has a very similar feature, "The Counted":
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/0...
The Guardian's feature is better in some ways; for instance, it attempts to account for all police engagement fatalities, not just shootings. Some of the worst police abuses in the US haven't involved guns, and if you read the data carefully you learn some surprising things, like how dangerous tasers are.
The Guardian also gives the state breakdowns weighted by their population, making it easier to spot problem states. But WaPo makes it much easier to see which states have more shootings of unarmed people.
* 79% of the people killed in this database were reported to have "deadly weapons" (not including cars).
* 64% of the people killed in this database were shot and killed while attacking someone with a deadly weapon.
You'd really like to have a more detailed breakdown on "deadly weapon"; specifically, you want to know which of the people shot had firearms, versus knives.
Nobody was fatally shot by a police officer in Rhode Island? That's surprising.
* The Guardian has a very similar feature, "The Counted":
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/0...
The Guardian's feature is better in some ways; for instance, it attempts to account for all police engagement fatalities, not just shootings. Some of the worst police abuses in the US haven't involved guns, and if you read the data carefully you learn some surprising things, like how dangerous tasers are.
The Guardian also gives the state breakdowns weighted by their population, making it easier to spot problem states. But WaPo makes it much easier to see which states have more shootings of unarmed people.
* 79% of the people killed in this database were reported to have "deadly weapons" (not including cars).
* 64% of the people killed in this database were shot and killed while attacking someone with a deadly weapon.
You'd really like to have a more detailed breakdown on "deadly weapon"; specifically, you want to know which of the people shot had firearms, versus knives.
Nobody was fatally shot by a police officer in Rhode Island? That's surprising.