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The Center for American Progress reports
Congress [just] passed a bill that could result in complete, national data on police shootings and other deaths in law enforcement custody.
Right now, we have nothing close to that. Police departments are not required to report information about police to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Some do, others don't, others submit it some years and not others or submit potentially incomplete numbers, making it near-impossible to know how many people police kill every year. Based on the figures that are reported to the federal government, ProPublica recently concluded that young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than whites.
Under the bill awaiting Obama's signature, states receiving federal funds would be required to report every quarter on deaths in law enforcement custody. This includes not [only] those who are killed by police during a stop, arrest, or other interaction. It also includes those who die in jail or prison. [Additionally,] it requires details about these shootings including gender, race, as well as at least some circumstances surrounding the death.
(Score: 3) by wantkitteh on Wednesday December 17 2014, @12:30PM
We don’t know whether those who didn’t report simply opted not to report that information, or didn’t have any shootings.
...does not equate to...
Most police departments go years, decades even, without shooting anybody.
The simple fact that there isn't a piece of paper with "zero fatalities this year ftw beer and donuts all round!" written on it shows a major ongoing problem with fatality reporting in the US. It took me 30 seconds refining my search terms on Google to come up with those figures for the UK going back 10 years.
https://www.ipcc.gov.uk/page/deaths-during-or-following-police-contact [ipcc.gov.uk]