How police violence is tracked and challenged in the United States, what changed in federal oversight in 2025 and what action you can take this week.
Police in the US killed 1,314 people in 2025, according to Mapping Police Violence, a database run by Campaign Zero (Campaign Zero). That was 5 percent fewer than the 1,383 people killed in 2024 and the first yearly decline in six years (Campaign Zero). Black people were 2.6 times more likely than white people to be killed by police (Mapping Police Violence 2025 report). Two-thirds of the killings followed a call for service. Out of the 1,314 killings in 2025, officers were only criminally charged in 15 cases (Mapping Police Violence 2025 report). As of Aug. 18, 2026, the database had counted at least 712 people killed by police in 2026 (Mapping Police Violence).
Several tools exist to hold police accountable, and each has limits. Prosecutors can file criminal charges. People harmed by police can sue under Section 1983, a part of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (National Constitution Center). The court-made doctrine of qualified immunity blocks many of those suits unless an officer violated a “clearly established” right (Wikipedia). Civilian oversight boards review complaints and policy in many cities. Since 1994, federal law has let the Justice Department (DOJ) investigate departments for a “pattern or practice” of unconstitutional policing and seek court-enforced reform plans called consent decrees (US Code).
Federal oversight shrank sharply in 2025. On Jan. 20, 2025, an executive order shut down the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, a federal record of officer misconduct (Wikipedia). An April 28, 2025, order directed DOJ to review consent decrees with the aim of changing or ending them (White House). The same order told federal agencies to increase the supply of excess military and national security assets to local police (White House). On May 21, 2025, DOJ moved to dismiss its cases against the Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky, police departments (NPR). The DOJ also withdrew findings of civil rights violations against police in Phoenix; Trenton, New Jersey; Memphis, Tennessee; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City; and the Louisiana State Police (NPR). A federal judge dismissed the Minneapolis case on May 27, 2025, and a separate state agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights remains in force (MPR News). A federal judge dismissed the Louisville case on Dec. 31, 2025, and the city now runs a voluntary reform plan with a hired monitor (WKMS). The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed the House in 2020 and 2021 (Wikipedia). It was reintroduced on Sept. 15, 2025, with 122 cosponsors and has not become law (Congressman Glenn Ivey) (Congress.gov).
Cities are also testing ways to send someone other than an armed officer to some 911 calls. A study of Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program, which sends a mental health clinician and a paramedic to low-risk calls, found a 34 percent drop in reports of the less serious crimes it targeted (Science Advances). None of the 748 calls STAR handled in its pilot required police backup (Science Advances). Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) started in Eugene, Oregon, in 1989 (Wikipedia). It stopped serving Eugene in April 2025 after a funding shortfall (OPB) and still operates in neighboring Springfield, Oregon (Lookout Eugene-Springfield). On April 22, 2025, DOJ cut about $169 million in grants for community violence intervention programs (Everytown Support Fund). In 2024, Florida barred civilian oversight boards from investigating police misconduct (WFSU). Much of the decision-making on police accountability now sits with city councils, state legislatures and local budgets.
10 actions — for yourself, your community and the country. Start with one.
Search your city or county on Police Scorecard, which grades more than 16,000 agencies on killings, complaints, arrests and accountability. Then open Mapping Police Violence to see how many people police have killed in your city and state. Write down two numbers to bring to your next public meeting.
Find your city’s current adopted budget on its website and the date of the next public budget hearing; the Vera Institute of Justice tool shows a 2020 baseline for 72 large cities. Sample comment:
“My name is ___ and I live in ___. Our city spends $___ on police this year. I ask the council to fund a civilian crisis response team for mental health and welfare-check calls, and to publish how many of those calls police handle now.”
Search “[your city] police oversight board” or “police review commission” to find meeting dates and public comment rules. The National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) lists member agencies and explains how boards work. At the meeting, ask how many complaints were filed last year, how many were sustained and what discipline followed.
Nix the 6 from Campaign Zero lets you pick your city from nearly 600 and see contract terms that limit accountability, such as erasing misconduct records or delaying officer interviews. It also lists cities whose contracts are up for negotiation. If yours is, email your council members and ask them to remove those clauses.
Download the Defense Logistics Agency’s quarterly spreadsheet of 1033 Program property held by law enforcement agencies, then search your state’s tab for your city and county. Note armored vehicles, rifles and other controlled items. Ask your council members at the next meeting whether the department plans to request more, since an April 2025 executive order told federal agencies to increase these transfers.
Share the Stanford study of Denver’s STAR program with your council member and ask whether your city sends clinicians instead of officers to low-risk calls. If it does not, ask them to fund a pilot and to publish call data. Eugene lost CAHOOTS in 2025 when funding fell short, so ask for funding that lasts more than one budget year.
Find your representative by ZIP code and call the office. Script:
“Hi, I’m a constituent from ___. I’m calling to ask Representative ___ to cosponsor the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, H.R. 5361. It would create a national police misconduct registry and limit qualified immunity. Can you tell me the Representative’s position?”
The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention supports hospital-based programs across the country that work with people after they are hurt by violence. The Anti Police-Terror Project in Oakland and Sacramento, California, runs MH First, a mental health crisis line staffed by volunteers instead of police. Both take donations online.
Look up your city on Don’t Call the Police, a directory of local alternatives to calling 911 for mental health, domestic violence and housing crises in more than 80 places. Save those numbers, plus 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which you can call or text 24 hours a day.
Read WITNESS’s guide to filming police in the US before you need it. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) explains that the First Amendment protects recording officers doing their jobs in public, that officers cannot delete your footage and that people who film still face retaliation. Check your state’s rules too; since Jan. 1, 2025, Florida has made it a crime to stay within 25 feet of a first responder after a warning.
President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Ku Klux Klan Act. The part now known as Section 1983 lets people sue state and local officials who violate their constitutional rights. Read more ›
Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California. Its early members ran armed patrols to monitor police. Read more ›
In Pierson v. Ray, the Supreme Court first recognizes a good-faith defense for officers sued for civil rights violations. This becomes the doctrine of qualified immunity. Read more ›
White Bird Clinic and the Eugene Police Department launch CAHOOTS, which sends a medic and a crisis worker to some 911 calls. Read more ›
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act lets the attorney general sue police departments for a “pattern or practice” of unconstitutional conduct. Read more ›
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kills George Floyd, setting off protests across the country. Read more ›
The House passes the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, 220-212. Senate negotiations collapse by September 2021. Read more ›
President Biden signs Executive Order 14074, which creates the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database for federal officers. Read more ›
President Trump’s Executive Order 14148 rescinds Executive Order 14074 and shuts down the accountability database. Read more ›
CAHOOTS stops serving Eugene, Oregon, after White Bird and the city cite funding problems. It continues in Springfield, Oregon. Read more ›
DOJ moves to dismiss its consent decree cases against Minneapolis and Louisville police and withdraws findings in six other jurisdictions. A federal judge dismisses the Minneapolis case on May 27. Read more ›
US District Judge Benjamin Beaton dismisses the Louisville consent decree case. Louisville continues a voluntary reform plan called Community Commitment. Read more ›
A sociologist looks at how police came to handle homelessness, mental illness, school discipline and drug use, and what other agencies could do instead.
Essays and interviews on prison and police abolition from a longtime Chicago organizer. It includes practical advice on organizing and on community accountability.
From our Banned Books Book Club list: Reshaping and Reimagining Culture
A short book in which Davis traces the growth of US prisons and makes the case for replacing them with schools, health care and other services.
From our Banned Books Book Club list: Abolition and the Prison Industrial Complex
A handbook on the limits of police reform and on community safety projects already running in US cities.
A history of police violence against Black women and other women of color, from the colonial period to the present.
A University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) law professor explains how qualified immunity, indemnification and other legal rules keep officers from paying for misconduct.
A former federal prosecutor examines how law and policing target Black men. He draws on his own arrest and his years as a prosecutor.
A lawyer and organizer describes how her own experiences with violence in St. Louis led her to support abolishing police.
Shop the Banned Books Book Club. Every book above links to our Banned Books Book Club shop on Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores. Related lists:
Downloadable modules on filming abuses safely and in ways courts can use, including printable pocket guides. Available in seven languages.
Webinars for oversight staff and the public on topics such as foot pursuit policies and police reports written with artificial intelligence. Recordings post about four months after each live session.
A practical guide to stopping interpersonal violence without police, with a free PDF and a companion workbook in English, Spanish and French.
A downloadable toolkit by Shira Hassan and Mariame Kaba for groups building crisis response that does not rely on police.
An online guide by Lewis Raven Wallace on checking police statements, finding other sources and filing public records requests.
Cofounded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense with Huey P. Newton in Oakland in 1966. The party’s early patrols monitored police in Black neighborhoods.
Scholar and activist who cofounded Critical Resistance, a national group working to abolish prisons. She wrote Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003).
Geographer at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and cofounder of Critical Resistance. Her 2007 book Golden Gulag studies California’s prison expansion.
Organizer who founded Project NIA in Chicago in 2009 to end youth incarceration. She is the author of We Do This ’Til We Free Us and coauthor of No More Police.
Lawyer and organizer who documents police violence against women of color. She wrote Invisible No More and coauthored No More Police with Mariame Kaba.
Policy analyst who founded Mapping Police Violence and cofounded Campaign Zero and Police Scorecard.
Sociology professor at Brooklyn College and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project. He wrote The End of Policing (2017).
UCLA law professor who studies qualified immunity and who pays when police are sued. She wrote Shielded (2023).
Historian of race and crime who wrote The Condemnation of Blackness (2010). He led the Schomburg Center from 2010 to 2015 and joined Princeton in 2025.
Traces qualified immunity from Section 1983 of the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act through Monroe v. Pape and the 1982 “clearly established” test.
Explains the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, which transfers surplus military equipment to local police.
Covers the police killing of Daniel Prude and non-police crisis teams such as CAHOOTS.
An FAQ on what “defund” and “abolish the police” mean, with steps for following your city council’s police budget.
Historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad traces US policing from Southern slave patrols and Northern city forces through the professionalization of police in the early 1900s.
A 2017 series on the police killing of Philando Castile during a traffic stop and the trial of the officer, who was acquitted on all charges.
A weekly show on race, politics and justice news hosted by a Campaign Zero cofounder.
Each episode explains one part of the criminal legal system, such as bail, plea deals or prosecutors, with expert interviews. It is a good starting place for readers new to the topic.
Slightly. Mapping Police Violence counted 1,314 killings in 2025, down 5 percent from 1,383 in 2024 (Campaign Zero). It was the first decline in six years, and police still killed more than three people a day on average (Campaign Zero).
The best-known study points the other way. Researchers found that reports of the less serious crimes targeted by Denver’s STAR program fell 34 percent in areas it served, and none of its 748 pilot calls required police backup (Science Advances). One study of one city cannot settle the question for every place.
No. Qualified immunity applies only to civil lawsuits for money damages (Wikipedia). Criminal charges are a separate process, and officers were charged in 15 of the police killings recorded in 2025 (Mapping Police Violence 2025 report).
DOJ asked courts to dismiss both cases in May 2025, and federal judges agreed (NPR) (WKMS). Minneapolis remains under a separate court-enforced agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MPR News). Louisville runs a voluntary reform plan with a hired monitor that reports to a 22-member Community Safety Commission (WKMS).
Yes. The First Amendment protects recording officers doing their jobs in public, and police may not delete your footage (ACLU). Some states set distance rules, such as Florida’s law against staying within 25 feet of a first responder after a warning (Police1). People who film still face arrest or retaliation (ACLU).
People use the phrase in different ways. Georgetown Law professor Christy E. Lopez wrote in 2020 that it “means shrinking the scope of police responsibilities and shifting most of what government does to keep us safe to entities that are better equipped to meet that need” (The Washington Post). Police abolitionists go further and aim to replace policing over time with housing, health care and community crisis response.
CAHOOTS stopped serving Eugene, Oregon, in April 2025 after its operator and the city cited funding problems (OPB). It still runs in Springfield, Oregon. As of September 2026, Eugene had no equivalent service (Lookout Eugene-Springfield). In April 2026 the city announced a one-year, $500,000 pilot that sends peer outreach workers to welfare checks (KLCC).
Every claim in this guide is cited inline. Here are all 33 sources in one place.
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