There Have Only Been 3 Days Since George Floyd's Death Where Police Did Not Kill Someone

As the issue of police brutality against Black people in the U.S. is being raised yet again in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, an independent project has highlighted the overall scale of fatal officer-involved shootings.

Blake was shot several times in the back by Kenosha Police as he tried to enter a vehicle at the 2800 block of 40th Street on Sunday.

The 29-year-old did not appear to have been armed at the time and the shooting is said to have taken place in front of three of his children, who were inside the car at the time.

Blake was reportedly attempting to break up a fight between two women prior to the shooting. He is said to be in a stable condition in hospital.

As with other high-profile shootings or killing Black of people by police, such as George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor and Michael Brown, the incident in Kenosha sparked mass protests.

The killing of Minneapolis man Floyd in May also helped spark nationwide calls for the police to be defunded.

Amid a second day of protests and clashes with police in Kenosha, Samuel Sinyangwe, activist and co-founder of Mapping Police Violence, revealed there have only been 12 days this year where police have not fatally shot someone.

According to data up to August 22, there were only three days since the death of Floyd on May 25 in which police did not kill someone—June 4, June 14, and August 12.

According to Mapping Police Violence, which tracks shootings by police in the U.S., police have killed 751 people during the first 235 days of 2020.

After Sinyangwe tweeted a graphic visualizing the data on August 24, people pointed out police still killed people on an almost daily basis in the U.S. despite the country going through various stages of lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We've been staying home and even so, the capacity for police violence has not diminished," tweeted Lisa Boehm.

Mapping Police Violence states that Black Americans are three times more likely to be killed by police, and that Black people make up 28 percent of the total figure of those killed by police since 2013, despite being only 13 percent of the population.

The actions of the Kenosha Police following the shooting of Blake have been condemned, including calls for a criminal investigation.

Khary Penebaker, a member of the Everytown Survivor Network, told Newsweek: "Jacob Blake and his family have been forever scarred by the same police violence that has injured and killed so many Black men in the United States.

"We can never forget that police violence is gun violence and we must fight for long overdue changes to put a stop to shootings by police and create accountability for those who have pledged to protect and serve."

The American Civil Liberties Union also criticized the latest example of a "egregious act of police violence" committed against a Black person in the U.S. in the wake of the incident in Kenosha.

"Unfortunately, disgusting acts of police brutality like this will be commonplace so long as police continue to act as an occupying force in Black communities," Jeffery Robinson, director of the ACLU's Trone Center for Justice and Equality, said in a statement to Newsweek.

"It should now be clear to elected officials across the country that the only way to end the scourge of police violence is to immediately divest from a policing institution that, from its inception, has been used to oppress Black people, and reinvest into the same communities that those horrific acts of violence are regularly perpetrated against.

"Policing is a crisis in and of itself, and we can no longer throw money and resources at an institution as hopelessly broken and expect to get different results."