According to the Washington Post database, regarded by Nature magazine as the “most complete database,” 13 unarmed black men were fatally shot
by police in 2019. According to a second database called “Mapping Police Violence”, compiled by data scientists and activists, 27 unarmed black men
were killed by police (by any means) in 2019.
Yet, over half (53.5%) of those reporting “very liberal” political views estimated that 1,000 or more unarmed Black men were killed, a likely error of at least an order of magnitude.
Our overall findings indicate that people are uninformed regarding the available data on fatal police shootings in the US.
Specifically, we found that the more people reported being “liberal” or “very liberal” on social and fiscal matters, the greater the discrepancy between the available data and their estimations.
