Since 2005, the police have shot 268 people, 111 of them fatally, records show. The rate of shootings by police officers was higher in Houston between 2010 and 2014 than in New York or Los Angeles, and the Houston police killed more people than the Los Angeles police despite having half as many officers, according to police data. (Officers in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, killed civilians at a higher rate than the Houston police did over that period, records show.)
Despite the troubling statistics, the Houston police have largely avoided the intensive public scrutiny directed in recent months at other large departments, including those in Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The reason, critics say, has been the lack of videotapes capturing the most questionable shootings of unarmed civilians.
Without videotaped evidence to contradict police accounts, shootings are far less likely to galvanize the public and to result in disciplinary action against the officers involved, criminologists say.
Lack of Videos Hampers Inquiries Into Houston Police Shootings - The New York Times
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