A new Washington Post study found police nationwide have already killed 385 people over the first five months of this year, and of that total, two-thirds of all the unarmed victims have been either black or Hispanic.

On average, the Washington Post found at least two people per day currently die at the hands of police, more than twice the rate of fatal police shootings tallied by the federal government over the past decade based on the most up to date data available. Overall, blacks were killed at three times the rate of whites or other minorities when adjusting by population.

"These shootings are grossly under­reported," said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief and president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving law enforcement.

"We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don't begin to accurately track this information."

As it is, a national debate continues to swell over the use of deadly force by police and in particular as it relates to minority citizens. To that end and as part of their ongoing research, the Washington Post is now compiling a database of all 2015 fatal police shootings, as well as data about every officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty.

An already-developing trend based on the research seems to be that many of the deadly encounters involving police stem from minor incidents and suddenly escalated into violence. About half the time, officers were called to the scene by people seeking help in a domestic disturbance altercation or some other sort of "complex social situation."

Of the 385 police victims, 49 of them were found to have no weapon and guns wielded by at least 13 others turned out to be toys. Later, as many as 92 of those killed were identified by family members as suffering from some sort of mental illness.

Thus far in 2015, officers have only been criminally charged in less than 1 percent of all the incidents or just three times overall. In one instance, South Carolina police officer Michael Slager was charged with the murder of Walter Scott only after a witness came forward with a video of him shooting the 50-year-old victim in the back as he ran away.

In yet another explosive case, Oklahoma reserve deputy Robert Bates was hit with second-degree manslaughter charges only after a public outcry over his story that he accidentally shot and killed 44-year-old Eric Harris after mistaken his gun for his taser.

More recently, six Baltimore police officers were indicted for crimes ranging from second degree murder to reckless endangerment in connection with the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. In that case, Gray died of a severely injured spinal cord he apparently sustained while in police custody.

"We have to get beyond what is legal and start focusing on what is preventable. Most are preventable," said Ronald L. Davis, a former police chief who heads the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

"Police need to stop chasing down suspects, hopping fences and landing on top of someone with a gun. When they do that, they have no choice but to shoot."