New data shows increase in fatal police encounters 5 years after George Floyd's death

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- New data tracks local and nationwide law enforcement encounters five years since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 sparked outrage, fear, and conversation.

"Black men, it seemed like, were at a high risk of police brutality. It appeared that way at the time, and there was just a lot of fear," said Dr. Lataria Hall with Fresno City College.

Dr. Hall saw the importance of those conversations.

"As a Black mom, who has three Black sons, I was also experiencing some fear," said Dr. Hall.

"As an educator and as a mom, one of the things that I wanted to do was get ahead of some of those fears and be more proactive, as opposed to reactive."

On campus, Hall arranged spaces for students to talk about their concerns.

"We just engaged everybody and invited them to the table to have those conversations, and they were allies because it wasn't just the Black community that was concerned, it was our Latino community, our Asian community, our white community,' said Dr. Hall.

Floyd was killed by Former Officer Derek Chauvin, who was later sentenced for murder.

Video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than 9 minutes went viral -- leading to protests and a demand for police reform.

In the immediate weeks after Floyd's death, the Minneapolis Police Department banned all forms of neck restraints and chokeholds.

Departments around the country looked at their policies -- and Fresno City College examined how cadets are trained in its police academy.

"To educate our cadets on things such as policing, understanding implicit bias, educating them on systemic inequalities, and social justice," said Dr. Hall.

They even introduced a de-escalation simulator.

Despite efforts at the local, state, and national levels, the Mapping Police Violence database shows fatal police encounters have increased nearly 38 percent in the five years since Floyd was killed. The largest increase has been among Black people.

ABC News has an interactive tool that breaks down the data by county, highlighting areas with high rates of police killings.

The data does not consider whether the death was deemed justified or unjustified.

We zoomed in on Fresno County-in the five years prior to Floyd's death -- there were 18 police killings in the county -- in the five years after -- there were 26.

Hispanics were most impacted, accounting for 20 of those deaths from 2020 to 2025.

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