Over the years searching in newspapers, I’ve collected articles reporting on excessive force incidents in policing (shootings, murders, and assaults) in North Carolina, and it became apparent that there would be the potential to develop a database for further research by applying a similar approach and methodology of a project like The Red Record.

My methodology has been to use newspaper reports as a first step to identify incidents, and then bring in public records such as census, vital records, and the like to confirm any information I can about the victim, the perpetrators, the details of the incident, and etc. I am recording this data in an Excel spreadsheet.

In the database I am recording the date of first obtainable newspaper article covering the incident (as in most cases there are multiple reports in different newspapers and at different times, which I’ve also collected) as well as the name and location of the newspaper itself: for certain kinds of analyses, it will be useful to look at the kind of newspaper coverage, the location of the newspaper publishing about the event, alongside the actual location of the incident. It is fascinating to see what papers were covering incidents far outside their own county or municipality, and to articulate patterns. Furthermore, it is notable how articles about the same incident compare as far as tone, accuracy, and framing. Some are profoundly contradictory. And incorrect. Along these lines, I am also recording the title/headline of the newspaper article, if there is one. The framing and language of the headlines, as brief as the are, provide incredible insight. Some titles include: “Resists Arrest and is Shot by Officer” and many mention the race of the victim, example “Colored Man Shot by Officer Brings Suit.”

The columns of my spreadsheet database are:

1. Newspaper Title
2. Date of Issue
3. Paper Location
4. Headline
5. Incident Municipality
6. Incident County
7. Building or Neighborhood Where Incident Occurred, if mentioned
8. Incident Date
9. Decade
10. Victim Name
11. Victim Race
12. Officer Name
    1. Officer(s) who perpetuated the incident
13. Officer Race
14. Other officers/officials/people involved
    1. Other officers, officials, bystanders, etc. involved in the actual incident.
15. Fatality?
    1. Yes/No
16. Incident Summary Code
    1. I developed the following coding system to describe stated “reasons” for police shooting, assault, or murder:
    2. R=resisted or defied orders
       F=fled/ran
       A=attacked (with a weapon or lunged with body)
       W=wielded a weapon (but did not attack)
17. Details of Incident
    1. Gleaned from newspaper coverage.
18. Lawsuit/Investigation (internal or otherwise)/Charges
    1. Whether any lawsuit, investigation, or charges followed the incident.
19. Outcomes, if known
    1. Outcomes of any lawsuit, investigation, or charges, plus what happened to people involved.
20. Information about Victim
    1. DOB, family members, etc.
21. Death Certificate?, if encounter fatal
    1. In NC, death certificates started being issued in 1913, although some areas issued them much earlier.
22. Cause of victim’s death, if Certificate found
    1. Exact phrasing from death certificate or other official documentation, if victim died.
23. Findagrave?
    1. link to Findagrave
24. Notes
    1. Questions, issues, etc.

Some quick summaries, although my additions to the database are ongoing:

1. At the time of this post, I’ve completed over 100 detailed and researched entries in the database, a marker that warranted going ahead and sharing out the work. As more are added, I will post updates.
2. The majority of the victims of police violence in North Carolina are Black (at the time of writing, 78%). That will likely not change.
   1. Whiteness as a default: if the victim was Black or Native, this is explicitly mentioned in a newspaper article, invariably. If the victim is white, race isn’t mentioned at all. Which is why I have a category (one that will hopefully change if I am able to confirm) of White(?) or Unclear, because it means that the race of the person isn’t mentioned, implying that they are white, or there are some other clues indicating that they are probably white. When I noted Unclear it’s because the article is so vague it’s hard to tell anything at all, unfortunately.
3. At the time of writing this post (and this will change), the top three NC counties with the highest number of incidents are: Wake (9%), New Hanover (7%), and Guilford (7%), which makes sense considering the size of the urban municipalities Raleigh, Wilmington, and Greensboro. Most interestingly, though, the location of the incidents are spread across the entire state, from very small municipalities and rural areas to the most densely populated, urban areas in NC. As I glean more insight about type of municipality, I will share that data, but the spread indicates that incidents of excessive force are not more typical of urban areas.
4. If the victim died as a result of the incident, sometimes that is unclear from the article and also unable to be corroborated with other sources. But the distribution at time of writing is Yes (fatal) 46% and No (not fatal) 41%, with unclear making up the remaining percentage. Lack of corroborating public/vital information accounts for this issue, as well as the vagueness/incorrectness of the newspaper coverage.
5. Nearly all of the officers directly involved with excessive force are white. I have also been researching the officers involved with incidents and have seen already that some repeatedly perpetuated multiple assaults, shootings, and murders, and demonstrate(d) a clear pattern of abuse, particularly towards people of color. While the data reveals the presence of individual officers who consistently used excessive force, the frequency of excessive force incidents and the broad geographical spread means that the incidents are common to policing, not anomalous or the result of “bad apples.”
6. Language – in the result of death, homicide and murder are both used frequently in newspapers, and on death certificates as cause of death, whether an officer is held to account or not. Furthermore, in a small percentage of incidents, officers are subjected to some kind of review or even trial, and 99% of the time the officer(s) are exonerated.
7. Probably the most fascinating fact to me at this point is that the first police shooting I can find is April 5, 1865 – notably 4 days before Lee surrendered to Grant, ending the Civil War. The article is frustratingly vague, but apparently a Black soldier was intoxicated and assaulted a Policeman in Wilmington named Wycoff. This soldier is unnamed, survived, but was arrested for assaulting the policeman. After this, incidents start to pick up in the 1880s. The earliest 2 incidents of the 1880s I have found so far, at least as far as newspaper coverage, are in March 1889 (Franklinton) and April 1889 (Charlotte). This does not mean that the police did not exist before this time, nor that these were the first ever police assaults, murders, or shootings in North Carolina. If you look at municipal charters there were codes built in for policing to allow for patrols to be organized of white men that operated like any slave patrol.

For as many of the incidents as possible, I will be posting details about them on this blog. In doing so, I hope that family members and descendants of victims can see some sort of closure and that this information will help victims see justice. And to prove, via data and primary evidence, that excessive force in policing is a feature, not a bug.