Why Cops Shoot

Why Cops Shoot

by Deleted user -
Number of replies: 1

This story project was started by one of my former professors Ben Montgomery. The project is why cops shoot: https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2017/investigations/florida-police-shootings/


The project worked with multiple people on their staff. The data visualization was not made by my professor, but they took the information he found through all his research to make an interactive map with a database that shows all the shootings considered in the 2009 to 2014 period. The information not only describes common details of each cases, but also locations, days they occurred, and who was shot from gender to race.

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2017/investigations/florida-police-shootings/database/


These elements convey how widespread police shootings are in Florida, as well as the commonalities among all these shootings.

The other portion of the project focuses on how if someone is black, then they are more likely to be shot. It uses data visualization to connect viewers to the subject more through only allowing them to see parts of the information at a time.

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2017/investigations/florida-police-shootings/if-youre-black/

I highly recommend viewing this project as I think it does a great job in informing people in a compelling way.

In reply to Deleted user

Re: Why Cops Shoot

by Deleted user -

Hi Vanessa,

Thanks for sharing this excellent example! The interactive component is a rich payoff for all the hard work that went into amassing this data on officer-involved shootings. Readers can sort incidents based on all kinds of filters, including gender and race, as well as level of threat posed to the officers or public, whether drugs or mental health issues were involved, etc. This provides a foundation for others to take the work forward: Mental health organizations could use the data to pinpoint problems and lobby for changes to state law, for instance, or smaller Florida newspapers could use the database to examine incidents in their community, benefiting from a resource they might not have been able to create on their own. To me, that is the gold standard of a data project: Creating a resource that be used by others to improve the community.