API Access

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Dataset Files

Each file has a stable URL (r-link) that you can use directly in scripts, apps, or AI agents. These URLs are permanent and safe to hardcode.

/fivethirtyeight/police-killings/

├ README.md

https://datahub.io/fivethirtyeight/police-killings/_r/-/README.md

├ data/police_killings.csv

https://datahub.io/fivethirtyeight/police-killings/_r/-/data/police_killings.csv

└ datapackage.json

https://datahub.io/fivethirtyeight/police-killings/_r/-/datapackage.json

Key Files

Start with these files — they give you everything you need to understand and access the dataset.

datapackage.json— metadata & schema

https://datahub.io/fivethirtyeight/police-killings/_r/-/datapackage.json

README.md— documentation

https://datahub.io/fivethirtyeight/police-killings/_r/-/README.md

Typical Usage

1. Fetch datapackage.json to inspect schema and resources
2. Download data resources listed in datapackage.json
3. Read README.md for full context

Data Previews

police_killings

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Schema

name	type	format
name	string	default
age	integer	default
gender	string	default
raceethnicity	string	default
month	string	default
day	integer	default
year	integer	default
streetaddress	string	default
city	string	default
state	string	default
latitude	number	default
longitude	number	default
state_fp	integer	default
county_fp	integer	default
tract_ce	integer	default
geo_id	integer	default
county_id	integer	default
namelsad	string	default
lawenforcementagency	string	default
cause	string	default
armed	string	default
pop	integer	default
share_white	number	default
share_black	number	default
share_hispanic	number	default
p_income	integer	default
h_income	integer	default
county_income	integer	default
comp_income	number	default
county_bucket	integer	default
nat_bucket	integer	default
pov	number	default
urate	number	default
college	number	default

Data Files

File	Description	Size	Last modified	Download
police_killings		129 kB	about 2 months ago	police_killings

Files	Size	Format	Created	Updated	License	Source
1	129 kB	csv		about 2 months ago		FiveThirtyEight - Police Killings

Police Killings

This directory contains the data behind the story Where Police Have Killed Americans In 2015.

We linked entries from the Guardian's database on police killings to census data from the American Community Survey. The Guardian data was downloaded on June 2, 2015. More information about its database is available here.

Census data was calculated at the tract level from the 2015 5-year American Community Survey using the tables S0601 (demographics), S1901 (tract-level income and poverty), S1701 (employment and education) and DP03 (county-level income). Census tracts were determined by geocoding addresses to latitude/longitude using the Bing Maps and Google Maps APIs and then overlaying points onto 2014 census tracts. GEOIDs are census-standard and should be easily joinable to other ACS tables – let us know if you find anything interesting.

Field descriptions:

Header	Description	Source
`name`	Name of deceased	Guardian
`age`	Age of deceased	Guardian
`gender`	Gender of deceased	Guardian
`raceethnicity`	Race/ethnicity of deceased	Guardian
`month`	Month of killing	Guardian
`day`	Day of incident	Guardian
`year`	Year of incident	Guardian
`streetaddress`	Address/intersection where incident occurred	Guardian
`city`	City where incident occurred	Guardian
`state`	State where incident occurred	Guardian
`latitude`	Latitude, geocoded from address
`longitude`	Longitude, geocoded from address
`state_fp`	State FIPS code	Census
`county_fp`	County FIPS code	Census
`tract_ce`	Tract ID code	Census
`geo_id`	Combined tract ID code
`county_id`	Combined county ID code
`namelsad`	Tract description	Census
`lawenforcementagency`	Agency involved in incident	Guardian
`cause`	Cause of death	Guardian
`armed`	How/whether deceased was armed	Guardian
`pop`	Tract population	Census
`share_white`	Share of pop that is non-Hispanic white	Census
`share_bloack`	Share of pop that is black (alone, not in combination)	Census
`share_hispanic`	Share of pop that is Hispanic/Latino (any race)	Census
`p_income`	Tract-level median personal income	Census
`h_income`	Tract-level median household income	Census
`county_income`	County-level median household income	Census
`comp_income`	`h_income` / `county_income`	Calculated from Census
`county_bucket`	Household income, quintile within county	Calculated from Census
`nat_bucket`	Household income, quintile nationally	Calculated from Census
`pov`	Tract-level poverty rate (official)	Census
`urate`	Tract-level unemployment rate	Calculated from Census
`college`	Share of 25+ pop with BA or higher	Calculated from Census

Note regarding income calculations:

All income fields are in inflation-adjusted 2013 dollars.

comp_income is simply tract-level median household income as a share of county-level median household income.

county_bucket provides where the tract's median household income falls in the distribution (by quintile) of all tracts in the county. (1 indicates a tract falls in the poorest 20% of tracts within the county.) Distribution is not weighted by population.

nat_bucket is the same but for all U.S. counties.

This dataset was scraped from FiveThirtyEight - police-killings