WATCH: The Daily Show Exposes the Shocking Lack of Data on Cops Killing Civilians

Janet Allon
,
 AlterNet
and
 Janet Allon
October 08, 2014

The Daily Show's senior correspondent Samantha Bee was planning on doing an in-depth piece on police shootings for Wednesday night's show, a piece which would begin with the data.

She never got over that hump. There is no data. Zilch. Nada.

Bee asked a slew of criminology experts, including New York's former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik. She even consulted data "dork" Nate Silver in a chance encounter on the street. She refused to believe that the federal government does not require local police departments to report stats on how many civilians they kill. "What possible reason could the federal government have to hide the number of times a citizen was killed by police?" she asked. "Never mind. I just answered that question in my head as it was coming out of my mouth."

She looked everywhere. The National Sheriff's Association, the General Accounting Office, Wikipedia, IMDB, Grinder.

But seriously, it was futile.

"No mom wants to think that their child will grow up to become just another statistic," Bee concluded. "Thankfully, given the current state of our laws, there's no chance of that ever happening." 

Watch the funny, illuminating and, truthfully, stunnning clip:

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