A few weeks ago I got my letter from the Senior Vice Chancellor approving my promotion to Professor (beginning next term). It’s a pretty surreal feeling. I’ve worked hard, but I’ve also benefited from a lot of good fortune along the way.
When I enrolled as an undergrad at the University of South Carolina about 20 years ago, this was definitely not the path I saw myself taking. At various times I saw myself going to law school or trying to get into federal law enforcement.
Roughly 2 years ago I started building a database of fatal officer-involved shootings (OIS) at the agency-year level, going back in time as far as possible. If you’re not familiar with the OIS data landscape, here’s the gist:
Official data compiled by the FBI and NVSS have long been recognized as woefully incomplete and thus inadequate.
Unofficial data compiled by current/former journalists, activists, and researchers have become available over the last decade or so.