Getting Away with Murder

Despite the national attention police violence gained and the calls for police reform following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, police officers are killing more people each year. Black and Hispanic people are killed by police officers at higher rates than white people.

Of all the police killings documented between 2013 and 2019, one data source found that only 1 percent of cases led to a conviction of a police officer. This book discusses four obstacles that stand in the way of getting accountability for police officers involved in cases of excessive police violence: Qualified immunity, the reasonable officer standard, police union contracts, and Law Enforcement Officers’ Bills of Rights.