At the height of Defund the Police, many left-wing activists would repeatedly spread hyperbolic lies about the number of unarmed Americans shot and killed by cops.

If you were an unwitting MSNBC viewer who believed the propaganda, you would think that police forces across the country were brutal, dangerous, and, of course, horribly racist. But if you took one glance at the actual data, you would be shocked to learn that police shootings were far more rare than activists and liberal media outlets made them out to be. No, police departments are not well-greased death machines that target thousands of black Americans every day. Yes, unarmed white people have also been shot and killed. (Subscribe to MR. RIGHT, a weekly newsletter about modern masculinity)

Big bummer.
The Washington Post is ending its police shooting database. This has been an immensely useful source, especially when you’re dealing with folks who think police kill 1000s of unarmed people.

I don’t know if it’s ending because of woke, anti-woke, or just budget cuts. pic.twitter.com/10ISHwfY6e

— Carl (@HistoryBoomer) June 23, 2025

One such outlet, The Washington Post, kept a useful database that tracked police shootings that had occurred since Jan. 1, 2015. The data helped cooler heads dispel the overblown anti-police narratives that were gripping American politics in 2020 and a few years after.

But, early in 2025, the outlet quietly ended its database for reasons that remain unclear. Maybe it had to do with WaPo’s impending editorial shakeup at the behest of owner Jeff Bezos, or the general mood of the news media after President Donald Trump’s election and the apparent end of wokeness. Maybe the reason is as simple as budget cuts. (RELATED: WaPo: We Didn’t Attack The Daily Caller, And Don’t Know Why Google Did)

I’m inclined to believe it’s because the data they accrued no longer supports anti-police narratives. It would be quite embarrassing for a media outlet to publish op-eds and features on the cruelty of racist police departments while at the same time building a database that points to the opposite.