ATLANTA — “I think Americans should know how many people are killed by their government,” D. Brian Burghart said.
That’s why he has dedicated the last eight years to tracking every officer-involved killing in the U.S.
His national database called “Fatal Encounters” includes high profile cases and ones that never made national headlines.
“When I realized that the federal government was not keeping track of this data, I recognized that somebody had to do it,” Burghart said.
He said what’s shocking is cities are not required to provide those fatal encounters to the FBI.
“I learned from the FBI that no law enforcement officer had ever killed anybody in the state of Florida,” he said.
The database is considered one of the largest collections of police-related deaths in the country. For years, Burghart has been digging through every police record and news article looking for the truth.
To date, he’s found more than 28,000 fatal encounters with police dating back to January 2000.
“Its obvious young African American men are over-represented in the data,” he said.
Rayshard Brooks, a black man, was recently added to the site.
A former Atlanta police officer shot and killed him in June.
But President Trump has a different point of view about who is killed more often by police.
“More white people by the way, more white people,” Trump said.
But Burghart suggested he was mischaracterizing the data.
“What he said was totally misleading because it's not about numbers it's about percentages and the ratio in the population,” Burghart said.
According to Statista, black Americans are two and half times more likely than whites to be killed by police.
So, how long will Burghart be in the fatal encounters numbers game?
“I’m in this game until something credible comes along to replace me,” he said.
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