We have temporarily suspended the Death by Cop database until disaster conditions here in Big Bend improve after a direct hit on our area by Hurricane Helene last week. We are still tracking data for the database and will enter them all as soon as life after the big storm is more normal.
Processing the database involves opening lots of media, gov and video archives that require a sustained bandwidth we do not have yet after the storm. Under the best of circumstances, in this rural area, our only internet access is AT&T Hotspot with a cell phone backup in this rural Big Bend area and all work is done this way. This is an underserved rural area.
Several dozen civilians and several cops have died in police encounters since we suspended work on the database a week or so before the storm. The fatality count should be around 1,900 for 2024 so far now. We are tracking all interim cases and will have exact numbers when we put everything back together. We lost power, internet and cell phone signal, had to evacuate an animal shelter we have here, secure people and animals first and ride out a hurricane. We started posting the animal side of this event here and will add a lot more photos and videos as soon as time permits. Big Bend, Florida, has been turbulent and we have been without power for almost 5 days when it flickered back on about 2 hours ago. Database work is still stalled and will be caught up and all interim events and new cases posted in full in coming weeks.
Police have killed several dozen additional people since we were forced to stop updating the database. the total fatalities in police encounters so far in 2024 in all criteria we could are around 1,900 right now, We will have exact numbers and all cases documented online soon.
IncarcerNation Database Update
IncarcerNation is a database that documents deaths during or caused by police encounters. All cases are entered, regardless of alleged crimes committed or other circumstances.
The database is multi-searchable and allows filtering to study the data multidimensionally and in comparison with total demographics map police activity in many sundown towns across the US. It becomes very visible when slicing and dicing the data with the filters we are adding. We list all cases we can document even if little is known. If someone dies during a police encounter by either direct force or vehicular chase or a coercive suicide under police duress, we list the case. Any death with cops in them in any form if cops contributed to this death either directly or indirectly is listed so that we may bet a full idea of deaths generally not tracked by databases at all such as the coercive suicides under police assault.
This is our old database which is for 2024 only and ends on September 20, 2024. Death by Cop fatalities should be around 1,900 by our method of recording the cases. The revamped database is coming very soon.
The database has been costly to build. Our IT costs have been high because everything is customized and we are constantly adding to it. We appreciate anyone who would like to support this work. We are on Paypal, and BuyMeACoffee.
What is included in the fatal police encounters we list?
Deaths by Gunshot, Vehicle (high-speed police chases, pedestrians killed by police vehicles), Drowning (usually during police pursuit), Tasers, Asphyxiation/chokeholds. We also list a category named “suicide under police duress” to highlight that these occur nearly daily, totaling several hundred per year. These are not spontaneous suicides but when reading the narratives, they tend to occur as a panic reaction under often extreme police assault via SWAT, CS gas fired, tasers, robots, Lenco BearCats and a firing squad of AR-15s pointing weapons which occurs almost daily. Even though they are self-inflicted, in cases where this occurs during police pursuit, assault or standoff, we list them.
Prisons under Hurricane Threat – Updates
We will continue looking for updates on the prisons left unevacuated in the hurricane’s path.
Taylor Correctional, a state prison in Perry, FL with a combined adult/juvenile population of 2,700 sits at the location of direct landfall of hurricane Helene. Power is out. Conditions are unknown. We will post updates in the future as we learn more detail. The roads to the disaster areas are blocked off by police and access is denied.
Jefferson Correctional, a state prison in Monticello, FL, population 1,200, is in one of 5 counties without power in Big Bend. We drove to the prison and encountered a blocked road with downed trees, power lines and several bucket trucks and tree trucks working on the area. We will check back periodically and update.
Wakulla Correctional – not evacuated, had expected a direct hit. Entire county evacuated except the prison before landfall. Hurricane Helene turned slightly to the east and hit Perry instead and Wakulla was spared a direct hit. There are some reports of up to 4 feet of water in the general region but both media and the government have not reported on conditions inside of this large medium security 2,700 bed prison. Much focus is placed on storm surges on social media. The worst devastation during this hurricane so far has been caused by extreme rainfall, not storm surges. Wakulla is in an area of wetlands and nearby mangroves and floods very easily under normal storm conditions. If we hear about the situation inside of Wakulla Correctional, we will post updates.
Wakulla prison was previously left unevacuated prior to category 5 hurricane Michael in 2018. The prison flooded, lost parts of the roof and inmates were forced to ride out a category 5 hurricane in cells while Michael made landfall 75 diagonal miles to the SW, making landfall around Mexico Beach, FL in 2018 and causing extreme damage to homes and vast landscapes in and around Apalachicola. Despite the hurricane strike on the prison full of inmates in 2018, no evacuation was undertaken in preparation for Hurricane Helene.
Who runs the Florida Department of Corrections?
DeSantis appointee Ricky D. Dixon.
“Dixon currently serves as President-Elect for the American Correctional Association and will assume the role of President in January 2025.”
Big Bend Animal Sanctuary
Aside from building the IncarcerNation database, we are a small private 1-family animal sanctuary under the Big Bend Animal Sanctuary (BBAS) name. We have kept this separate from our database work so far but there has been interest in especially the cat sanctuary, so here is that story. Big Bend is a rural area sparsely populated by humans and overflowing with feral cat colonies. We arrived here in 2018 just before hurricane Michael from the Seattle area and found a huge place on a lot of acres for about 1/3 of the price of a compact condo in Seattle.
In this rural area, feral cat colonies and homeless cats and feral colonies are everywhere. We have a lot of room and goodwill. We began helping cats via TNR and socializing, fixing illnesses of feral litters of kittens, spaying/neutering and finding homes for them. We took in a number of dogs, found homes for most and 5 are with us currently with a friendly bulldog who is our long-term foster dog preparing to go to a great new home.
So far, everyone who was not adopted stayed with us but we are at a high census animals and need homes for especially several kittens pending spay/neuter completion.
We are a small 501©3. That gets us some donated dry cat and dog food from Costco but we never found funding. It is painfully expensive to do this. We never meant to get this full and we will keep going while we can afford it. We pay for most foods and shop in bulk to stretch funds, tend to need a lot of vet visits for intakes of newly arrived sick stray kittens and meds except spay/neuter vouchers. We strive to transform feral kittens (most of whom have so far come in with serious pneumonia, parasites and malnutrition) into healthy, spayed/neutered adoptable cats and into homes. It is working but we have a lot of hefty cost we pay out of pocket on an ongoing basis to provide for a large group of cats. We get only material occasional food donations, no funding at all currently and out of pocket funding as best as we can. The BBAS page on Twitter does not have much info yet but we will soon post details on our cats, the adoptable kittens, the catio we just built for rescue cats on this page.
Adoptions are difficult here. This is largely due to our location in a forgotten rural area. We need adoptive homes for great kittens and cats! Anyone wanting to adopt a cat or kitten or wanting to help us keep going with a donation is appreciated. We are a nonprofit and donations are tax-deductible at Paypal.
We will soon be back with a new expanded database, daily fatality counts, news and a lot more.
Wishing you and your loved ones well in this time. Make sure to put them above the site if you are forced to choose.
On topic, no news about jails, juvies, prisons, psychiatric facilities and rehabs affected by Helene is news in of itself. Please, if you can, write a short article (single-focus, 500-1500 words) that lists the sites which you are aware of having gone dark and emphasizes that no information is available about any of them even this late after Helene’s passing – in modern social media comments linking to such content is the perfect format for spreading the word among people who aren’t heavily online, but it needs an article to link to. Inflammatory language like ‘information blackout’ is a plus. If you can do this I’ll do everything I can to signal boost it.