In an effort to enhance public awareness and promote a deeper understanding of police misconduct in Louisiana, the ACLU of Louisiana conducted research to present a statewide analysis of police violence. This project’s data are sourced from Mapping Police Violence, the Louisiana Law Enforcement Accountability Database, FBI Crime Data Explorer, and the 2020 U.S. Census. We invite you to explore this interactive platform, examine trends, and join us in advocating for transparency and transformative change in law enforcement practices.
Content Updated March 25th, 2024, Police Killing Data Updated March 25th, 2024, all other Data Updated January 11th, 2024.
Officers and Agencies
Data and Limitations
The Victims
Killings and Demographics
Killing Circumstances
Police Responsibility
Police and Misconduct
Misconduct Cases
Allegations, Dispositions, and Repercussions
Exploring the Data
Key Terms
Methodology
Data on known killings by police were obtained by Mapping Police Violence and include crowd-sourced data on killings by police officers that have been reported by the media beginning in 2013. The Mapping Police Violence data are sourced from the Google News and validated using Fatal Encounters, Fatal Force, and governmental data sources. More information on these data can be found at mappingpoliceviolence.org. Data used for this report was downloaded from Mapping Police Violence on January 11th, 2024.
Demographic information was obtained from the 2020 U.S. Census. In the analyses presented here, the Black population includes individuals who identified their race as Black or African American alone or in combination with another race. The white population includes individuals who identified their race as white and their ethnicity as not “Hispanic or Latino”.
Data on police officers were obtained from the FBI Crime Data Explorer. The Law Enforcement Employees dataset comprises annual data concerning personnel employed by law enforcement agencies, encompassing both officers and civilians. The Law Enforcement Agency names were cleaned using the Law Enforcement Agency Identifiers Crosswalk, United States, 2012 accessed through the University of Michigan on January 11th, 2024.
Data on known misconduct by police officers were obtained by the Louisiana Law Enforcement and Accountability Database (LLEAD) through public records requests and include public data collected from law enforcement agencies including police departments, sheriff’s offices, and civil service commissions. Note that as the data is a result of law enforcement reporting, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or depth of the reporting. To learn more about how the data is collected, visit llead.co or their GitHub page. Data used for this report was downloaded from LLEAD on January 11th, 2024.
Please note that the categorization of misconduct allegations, dispositions, and repercussions was carried out by analyzing key word stems, with the aim of standardizing categories across various police department reports. It is important to acknowledge that in certain instances, these classifications may not fully reflect the actual allegations, dispositions, and repercussions due to inconsistent reporting. For a detailed breakdown of our classification methodology, you can refer to this PDF document.
To learn more about how the data was used to produce our analysis and visualizations, you can visit this project’s GitHub page.