Racial/ethnic disparities among people fatally shot by U.S. police vary across state lines

In new study, firearm ownership rates did not explain why some states had such wide disparities

2026-03-11

(Press-News.org) In a new analysis, racial and ethnic disparities in fatal shootings of U.S. residents by police varied widely between states. Roland Neil of the RAND Corporation in California, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on March 11, 2026.

In the U.S., police officers fatally shoot about 1,000 people every year. Overall, Black U.S. residents are about twice as likely to die by police shooting than Hispanic U.S. residents, and about three times as likely to die by police shooting than White U.S. residents.

However, few studies have examined the extent to which these racial/ethnic disparities differ between different U.S. states, nor whether such differences could be explained by state-level firearm ownership rates—a question arising from various ways in which firearm availability and its interaction with stereotypes may influence police officers’ perceptions of danger. To help fill those gaps, Neil and colleagues analyzed data from The Washington Post on fatal shootings of U.S. residents by police that occurred between 2015 and 2020.

The analysis revealed that, while a larger proportion of Black people than White people were fatally shot by police in every state, Black-White disparities varied significantly between states. For instance, in Mississippi, the difference between the number of fatal shootings by police of Black residents versus White residents was 0.5 per 100,000 residents, while that difference was 6.72 in Utah. The five states with the largest disparities, in order, were Utah, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Colorado and Missouri. The five states with the smallest disparities were Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia.

Although Hispanic people were more likely to die by police shooting than White people nationally, for most states, rates of fatal police shootings of Hispanic people were lower than for White people. The national disparity seems to have been primarily driven by Southwestern states with particularly large Hispanic-White disparities in death by police shooting, high overall fatal shootings by police, and large Hispanic populations – including New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and California.

Further statistical analysis showed that states with higher firearm ownership rates had higher rates of fatal shootings by police for all racial/ethnic groups. However, the researchers found that higher firearm ownership rates do not explain why certain states had much wider racial/ethnic disparities than others.

These findings could help illuminate paths toward policies aimed at reducing racial/ethnic disparities in fatal shootings by U.S. police.

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/3OM2u79

Citation: Neil R, Bushway S, Schell TL, Morral AR, Smart R (2026) Racial and ethnic disparities in fatal police shootings: Variation across U.S. states and the role of firearm ownership. PLoS One 21(3): e0333424. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0333424

Author countries: U.S.

Funding: Funding for this research was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Grant #80257 (PIs: AM & RS) https://www.rwjf.org. The sponsor did not play any role in the research process.

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