Displaying deadly police violence against Black people through government memorials

Purpose The purpose of this article is to explore the understudied intersection of government-sponsored memorials of Black people alongside the demographics of police officers who were involved in their deaths and the emergence of government-sponsored memorials for Black people slain by police. Design/methodology/approach Three open-source databases of Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post Fatal Police Shootings were analyzed to determine how many unarmed Black people were killed by police from 2013 to 2023. Findings In roughly two-thirds of the cases where memorials were established, the officer using force was terminated or voluntarily left the police department. In over half of the cases, officers were charged criminally. Most cases were high-profile and attracted national media attention. The memorial recipients’ names were repeatedly evoked in the media, through protests, and in scholarship. Research limitations/implications Fatalities of Black people by police are significantly greater than for other groups in the United States. Black people honored with memorial toponyms is a rare occurrence, based on the disproportionate police-involved killings of unarmed Black people. Further examination is needed to build on this research. Originality/value Existing literature largely supports that police disproportionately kill Black people. No previous study has explored the intersection of physical government-sponsored memorials, the circumstances of fatalities of Black people killed by police, and the demographics of the involved officers.