In 2016, 232 black Americans in the United States were shot and killed by police, accounting for nearly a quarter of the total 957 deaths from fatal police shootings, according to a database compiled by The Washington Post.

The figures indicated that there were an average of 2.6 people fatally shot by police each day in 2016, with more than one black people shot and killed every two days.

In addition, the number of Hispanics shot dead by police stood at 160 in 2016.

Although the figures are considerably high, they are shy of those of 2015 when a total of 991 people were shot dead by police, including 258 black people and 172 Hispanics.

The Washington Post started recording fatal police shootings in January 2015 based on news reports, public records, social media and other sources.

It documented those shootings in which a police officer, in the line of duty, shot and killed a civilian -- the circumstances that most closely parallel the 2014 killing of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The death of Brown, together with the killing of another African-American Eric Garner in New York City in the same year, makes "Black Lives Matter" an nationally recognized activist movement.

Although the FBI has a national database of fatal police shootings, the information is not updated regularly, reported online news website International Business Times.

FBI officials announced in early 2016 that changes would be made to improve the national data system, but the updated regulations and requirements for recording the data wouldn't take effect until 2017, the IBT added.

source: Xinhua