In a suburb of St. Louis, Michael Brown, 18, an unarmed black teenager, was shot to death by a police officer on the sunny afternoon of Aug. 9. Two days later, near dusk in South Los Angeles, Ezell Ford, a black man in his mid-20s, was shot to death by a police officer. His family says he was unarmed. Last fall, in a subdivision near Charlotte, N.C., Jonathan Ferrell, 24, an unarmed black man, was shot to death by a police officer.
In a country still sorting through the emotions stirred by the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen confronted by a neighborhood-watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla.–a country rattled by a disturbing video of Eric Garner, 43, an unarmed black man, dying after an apparent police choke hold on July 17 in Staten Island, N.Y.–it would be useful to know how often this happens.
