Police Brutality / Individual record
Rakeem Bentley
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Rakeem Bentley in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2016-01-15 in Southfield, MI. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-341
- Incident date
- January 15, 2016
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Southfield, MI
- Agency
- U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 24
What happened
Rakeem Bentley, 22, was shot and killed by an FBI agent in Southfield, Michigan, on January 15, 2016, during an attempted arrest. Federal officials said Bentley had been sought in connection with a criminal investigation and that agents encountered him in a vehicle before the gunfire. The fact that an FBI agent, rather than a local police officer, fired is essential to understanding which authority investigated the case. A complete account of the encounter, including any weapon claim and whether federal or state prosecutors evaluated the force, requires the original FBI and local records. The Fatal Force database documents the death, while the precise basis for firing remains unverified in the source material used here.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 1196
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- gun
- Flee status (source)
- not
- Agency IDs (source)
- 2955
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset