US police have fatally shot nearly 1,000 people a year since police-brutality protests erupted, Washington Post finds

• A Washington Post tally found that police officers in the US had fatally shot nearly 1,000 people a year since 2015.
• The Post says this year seems to be on a similar pace, with 463 people killed in police shootings so far.
• Most of the people were armed, and about half were white, but The Post did find that Black people had been killed at disproportionate rates.

US police officers have fatally shot roughly 1,000 people a year for the past half a decade despite promises for reform, The Washington Post said Monday, citing a tally it had been keeping since 2015.

The Post said it began keeping track of fatal police shootings in 2015 amid a wave of protests against police brutality that year. Its final count was 994, a number it said was "twice as many as ever documented in one year by the federal government." But similar numbers were repeated year after year.

Here are The Post's numbers:

• In 2015, the police fatally shot 994 people
• In 2016, the police fatally shot 962 people
• In 2017, the police fatally shot 986 people
• In 2018, the police fatally shot 991 people
• In 2019, the police fatally shot 1,004 people
• So far in 2020, the police have fatally shot 463 people

The Post noted the consistency of the numbers, with this year's pace perhaps surprising considering that the coronavirus pandemic had prompted stay-at-home orders for much of the country for months. The Post reported that 49 more people were killed in 2020 compared with the same period last year. May was the deadliest month, with 110 killings.

Protests in 2015 responded to several high-profile cases of police officers killing Black men.

Michael Brown, 18, was fatally shot in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. In December of that year, a video emerged that showed the death of Eric Garner, who pleaded for air when a police officer had an arm around his neck. In April 2015, Freddie Gray suffered a spinal injury while being transported in a police van. A video recorded a police officer shooting Walter Scott in the back in North Charleston, South Carolina, the same month.

The Post noted that the vast majority of those shot to death by the police were armed, and about half were white. It did find, however, that Black people had been killed at disproportionate rates.

"The number of black and unarmed people fatally shot by police has declined since 2015, but whether armed or not, black people are still shot and killed at a disproportionately higher rate than white people," The Post wrote.

After the 2015 protests, some officials vowed to change the way the police used force. Some reform ideas included pushing for the use of body cameras and implementing bias training.

Protests have now erupted demanding the end of police violence and racial injustice after the video surfaced of George Floyd becoming unresponsive as a white police officer kept a knee on his neck for several minutes in Minneapolis.

All four officers involved in the arrest were fired and now face criminal charges. Derek Chauvin, the officer seen in the video kneeling on Floyd's neck, has been charged with second-degree murder.

Protests have taken place in all 50 states and internationally, with many chanting for "defunding" the police.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," a Black Lives Matter cofounder, Alicia Garza, said defunding the police meant a realignment of society's priorities by way of funding and responsibilities in the community.

"When we talk about defunding the police, what we're saying is 'invest in the resources that our communities need,'" she said.

"Are we willing to live in fear that our lives will be taken by police officers who are literally using their power in the wrong way?" she asked. "Or are we willing to adopt and absorb the fear of what it might mean to change our practices, which will ultimately lead to a better quality of life for everyone."

Additionally, nine members of the Minneapolis City Council announced plans to disband the city's police force, Business Insider previously reported. The announcement came almost two weeks after Floyd's death.