'Lethal Restraint: An investigation documenting police use of force,' from The AP, the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism, and FRONTLINE

Join the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication on Tuesday, April 9 from 5 to 7 p.m. to talk about the unprecedented, multi-platform investigation “Lethal Restraint: An investigation documenting police use of force.”

Three years in the making, the project is a major collaboration between The Associated Press global investigations team, the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University and the University of Maryland, and FRONTLINE (PBS).

Every day, police across the country use physical restraints, Tasers, takedowns and other tactics in encounters that are not supposed to be fatal. But sometimes, what is known as “less-lethal force” can still end in death. The federal government has struggled for years to count these types of deaths, and the little information it collects is incomplete. That’s where this project comes in. “Lethal Restraint” documents 1,036 non-shooting deaths involving law enforcement from 2012 through 2021. The joint reporting project created an unprecedented interactive story and database of these cases, which are now available to the public.

Hear from the reporters and editors behind “Lethal Restraint” on the challenges of documenting police use of force and holding departments and officers accountable, especially in encounters with police that don’t involve a gun.