An abbreviated version of this paper has been published in Contexts: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1536504218776970..........................................................................................................This paper examines police-public encounters that resulted in the fatal shooting of civilians during 2015 and 2016. Data published by The Washington Post is merged with data collected by the author regarding how encounters were initiated. Descriptive analysis and basic statistical analysis is performed and the results indicate that how police contact was initiated varies by race/ethnicity, age, sex, mental health status, and whether (or how) the individual killed by police was armed with a weapon. The implications of the results for understanding police use of force are discussed. This paper recommends that databases on civilian fatalities include information on how contact was initiated. Without this crucial information, understandings of police use of force are incomplete.