edwards of the american civil liberties union things the lack of data about police killings is unset bling. >> we need the data to know what the police are doing today, this year, but last year, and the year before. what are the trends are they shooting more people. are they disproportionately african-american are the rates growing. >> reporter: it wasn't supposed to belike this. the death in custody reporting act was passed in 2000 requiring the deaths in custody to be reported. the law had no teeth, and 16 states and the district of columbia opted not to participate. >> our knowledge of use of force, officer-involved shooting is patchy, and dependent on departments collecting the data and sharing the data. they don't do that reliability. >> the department of justice says it's only able to identify about half of all whomhomicides. the true number pay be as high as 928. brian's organization using police reports, and other research methods positively identified 1,192 lives lost at the hands of police in 2014. 28% higher than the official estimates. >> i mean, in a perfect world police depar