From WFPL and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization:
"Kentucky state troopers shot and killed at least 41 people during [the period from 2015 to 2020], including 33 in rural areas. To examine these deaths, reporters interviewed more than 100 people and reviewed dozens of court cases and thousands of pages of police investigative reports, in addition to conducting the data analysis.
"Like most other police shootings across the country, those in rural settings seldom lead to indictments or prosecutions of the officers involved, the data show. This holds in Kentucky, where the state police investigate their own shootings without an independent review. That model is changing in many parts of the country, where states and municipalities have set up independent investigative units.
"To analyze the record of the Kentucky State Police, reporters filed more than a dozen Open Records Act requests, combed through more than 30 state police investigative reports, reviewed dozens of court cases, and interviewed more than 100 people during the yearlong investigation.
"Specific findings about the 41 people killed by state police in Kentucky came largely from the agency's investigative reports, including details about locations, weapons, mental illness and toxicology. In eight cases for which an investigative report was not available, reporters relied on other police documents and news reports."
