According to The Guardian newspaper, which is keeping a track of every police shooting this year, 64 unarmed African American men have been shot dead this year alone.
As America heads into election year, one of the issues fiercely debated every day but missing from the campaigns is the police shootings of unarmed African American men.
But that could soon. Polls show that race relations have actually got worse under President Barack Obama and the mistrust between the police and the African American community is wider than ever.
The series of shootings of unarmed African American men by police has led to a movement called 'Black Lives Matter'.
In a recent incident a police officer fatally shot a African American man in a wheelchair in the state of Delaware. It was Michael Brown's shooting in Ferguson last year that sparked off riots and an outcry for police reform. The Police however say these are few incidents and do not define how the police actually works.
A New York Times-CBS poll conducted earlier this year in July says nearly six in 10 Americans think race relations are "generally bad".
That's a huge change from the two-thirds of Americans surveyed shortly after President Obama took office who said they believed that race relations were "generally good".
According to The Guardian newspaper, which is keeping a track of every police shooting this year, 64 unarmed African American men have been shot dead this year alone.
Jim Pasco, Executive Director of the National Fraternal Order of the Police, the largest police union in America, told NDTV, "The vast majority of Police officers are hardworking individuals performing admirably sometimes heroically and sometimes even anonymously."
"In support and defence of US citizens and it's a shame to see them come under attack for the few cases where it's possible that the officers may have misbehaved," he said.
At the campus of one of America's historic African American universities, Howard University, in Washington DC, students described their fear of the police.
One student said, "When I walk around and I see police officers, I don't feel safe. I have friends who've had complications with police officers and it's not just Ferguson, these things happen all the time. You get targeted by the police just for being black."
A female African American student said, "After the election of President Obama we felt that things might lighten up, but it hasn't happened. But it's not because of him but either the negative influence people have on him being elected or how hard he has to fight for getting things done."