{
  "version": "v0.2.0",
  "dataset": "counting-the-killings",
  "subject": "How the United States counts people killed by police, and who does the counting, as reconciled open data",
  "tier": "public",
  "provenance": "Derived aggregate counts only. Reconciled from five independent, cited public efforts (see the sources table). This release publishes per-dataset annual totals, definitional scope, and federal coverage. It does NOT re-host any person-level records. Each upstream dataset keeps its own license and is linked, never mirrored.",
  "scope": "Derived aggregates, national United States, not a re-hosted roster of the people who died.",
  "canonical": "/research/police-shootings",
  "tables": [
    {
      "table": "datasets",
      "rows": 5,
      "about": "The five independent efforts that count people killed by police in the United States, and the definition each one chose."
    },
    {
      "table": "annual",
      "rows": 24,
      "about": "Per-dataset annual counts. WaPo (2015-2024) and MPV (2013-2024) are aggregated directly from each project's primary dataset; the Guardian's two years are its own published totals."
    },
    {
      "table": "officer_coverage",
      "rows": 4,
      "about": "The FBI Use-of-Force collection's share of sworn officers employed by participating agencies, by year, against the 80 percent threshold it needs before it can publish national totals."
    },
    {
      "table": "agency_coverage",
      "rows": 1,
      "about": "The FBI collection's share of agencies that participate at all, a distinct and much lower series than officer coverage."
    },
    {
      "table": "overlap",
      "rows": 10,
      "about": "The record-level overlap by year, from MPV's own WaPo-ID and Fatal-Encounters-ID linkage: how the three civilian lists nest, and the MPV-only killings split into non-shooting (definitional) and shooting."
    },
    {
      "table": "sources",
      "rows": 10,
      "about": "The provenance ledger. Every figure in the release resolves to one of these entries."
    }
  ],
  "counts": {
    "datasets": 5,
    "annual": 24,
    "officer_coverage": 4,
    "agency_coverage": 1,
    "overlap": 10,
    "sources": 10,
    "total": 54
  },
  "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "files": [
    "datasets.json",
    "datasets.csv",
    "annual.json",
    "annual.csv",
    "officer_coverage.json",
    "officer_coverage.csv",
    "agency_coverage.json",
    "agency_coverage.csv",
    "overlap.json",
    "overlap.csv",
    "sources.json",
    "sources.csv"
  ],
  "citation": "Lawrence, J. (2026). Counting the Killings: how the United States counts people killed by police, as open data (v0.2.0). jakelawrence.xyz/research/police-shootings.",
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    "annual.json": "913238269b8b08e46fc8dfc2b74384ccb6f3106abe52bee6fddc27598d16261a",
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}