A student posted something on his Instagram page that seemed to indicate that there are more deaths from police interactions with the public than when George Floyd was killed. Is this the case? I researched the statistics, and this is what I found.

Research from Statista on the number of people shot to death by the police in the United States from 2017 through 2024 seems to indicate that the number is increasing, going up every year since 2017 (981) through 2020 (1,048) and the last two years (1,164 in 2023 and an estimated 1,173 in 2024).

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in Georgia. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is @JohnTures2.