It has already been a particularly deadly year in terms of people killed in encounters with police in Canada — and Black and Indigenous people continue to be over-represented among the fatalities.
There were 30 people killed after police used force in Canada in the first half of 2020, which is the full-year average for such deaths over the past 10 years (the deadliest year was 2016, when 40 people were killed). This is according to the Deadly Force database, updated and maintained by the CBC’s own researchers.
The database shows Black and Indigenous people are disproportionately represented amongst the victims compared to their share of the overall population.
The data also finds most of those killed in police encounters suffer from mental illness or substance abuse.
There is no government database listing deaths at the hands of the police available to the public in Canada, so CBC News created its own. The CBC’s research librarians have collected detailed information on each case, such as ethnicity, the role of mental illness or substance abuse, the type of weapon used and the police service involved, to create a picture of who is dying in police encounters.
The database focuses on
fatal encounters where police used force. It does not include in-custody deaths, self-inflicted wounds as a result of suicide or attempts to evade police, or accidental police-caused deaths (such as a traffic accident).
First created in 2018, the database was recently updated to the end of June 2020. Findings have remained consistent, including:
- The number of cases has continued to rise over the past 20 years, even when corrected for population growth.
- Black and Indigenous people are disproportionately represented amongst the fatalities compared to their share of the overall population.
- Mental health and substance abuse issues were present in the majority of cases.
Criminologist Scot Wortley says collecting this kind of data is an important way to hold police accountable.
The University of Toronto professor’s research played a part in Nova Scotia outlawing police street checks in 2019 after his review of data from Halifax Regional Police found that Black people were disproportionately targeted.
“When we get broader statistical information that are documenting these patterns year after year after year, it’s much more difficult for police officials and politicians to just turn their backs and say that these allegations are unfounded,” Wortley said.
According to our Deadly Force database, Indigenous people form 16 per cent of the deaths but only 4.21 per cent of the population (annualized over 20 years), and Black people form 8.63 per cent of deaths and only