Police Brutality / Individual record
Samuel DuBose
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Samuel DuBose in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2015-07-19 in Mt. Auburn, OH. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-219
- Incident date
- July 19, 2015
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Mt. Auburn, OH
- Agency
- University of Cincinnati Police Department
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 43
What happened
Samuel DuBose was fatally shot by University of Cincinnati police Officer Raymond Tensing on July 19, 2015, during a traffic stop for a missing front license plate. Body-camera footage showed DuBose remaining in his car as Tensing questioned him. The officer fired one shot into the car as it began moving, claiming that he had been dragged and feared for his life; subsequent reviews challenged that account. A university-commissioned administrative report concluded the fatal shooting was entirely preventable and should not have occurred. Tensing was charged with murder and voluntary manslaughter, but two state trials ended in mistrials, and prosecutors later dismissed the charges. In July 2021 federal prosecutors announced they would not file civil-rights charges because they could not prove the required willful constitutional violation beyond a reasonable doubt.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 653
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- unarmed
- Flee status (source)
- car
- Agency IDs (source)
- 656
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset