Vermont is currently the only state where zero people have been killed by police in 2015, according to The Guardian‘s police violence database“The Counted.”

Zero people had been killed by police this year in South Dakota, Rhode Island, and Vermont before September. But The Guardian reports that Richard Cosentino of Rhode Island and Curtis Meyer, Rory Gunderman, and Patrick Lundstrom of South Dakota all had fatal encounters with law enforcement.

Gunderman was white, Lundstrom was of unspecified Native American/American Indian ethnicity, and Cosentino and Meyer’s races/ethnicities are listed as “unknown.” All four were men. Meyer and Gunderman were armed with guns, authorities said, and Lundstrom was reportedly armed with a “blunt object.” Cosentino died unarmed in police custody.

“The Counted” tracks the number of people killed by police in the United States and breaks down each killing by a variety of demographics. The Guardian launched its database because the U.S. government maintains no such comprehensive database—a fact brought to light by the#BlackLivesMatter and Black Lives Matter activism that followedMichael Brown’s fatal shooting by Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson, and Eric Garner’s killing in Staten Island, N.Y.

The Guardian is not the only organization to launch a database tracking police-related deaths in 2015. The Washington Post maintains a similar database that only records the number of people shot by police, and Samuel Sinyangwe, Johnetta Elzie, and DeRay Mckesson maintainMapping Police Violence, where they issue monthly reports detailing the number of black people killed by authorities in the U.S.

by John Walker for fusion.net

Former Sheriff’s Deputy Nick Moen

UPDATE @ 07/02/2015 3:48 AM: A reader brought it to our attention that the judge responsible for giving Nick Moen a 30-day jail sentence is also presiding over another trial involving a Vermont state senator.

The Burlington Free Press wrote in a May article:

“Prosecutors allege Sen. Norman H. McAllister, R-Franklin, over a period of several years sexually assaulted two women who were his tenants and employees, and that he attempted to solicit a third woman.”

Judge Alison Arms is overseeing the trial, having already set a bail of $20,000 to the politically-connected McAllister.

Vermont State Senator Norman McAllister, alleged to have “traded” sexual favors for rent with unwilling tenants

GRAND ISLE, Vt. — A Vermont sheriff’s deputy convicted for possessing child pornography has received a sentence so lenient it’s causing outrage in the community.

Former Grand Isle Sheriff’s Deputy Nick Moen was arrested in January of 2015 and given a paltry 30-day sentence for multiple counts of possession of child pornography. Prosecutors said Moen used file sharing networks to obtain and share sexually explicit images of young children on the Internet.

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office offered an extremely light plea deal to Moen, who agreed to plea guilty to three felony charges in exchange for 3-year sentence — but Judge Alison Arms suspended all but 30 days of the prison term.

An affidavit given by Matthew Ramon, the arresting officer in Moen’s case, described the horrific contents found on Moen’s computer:

“Moen’s files included a nine year old girl giving her father ‘a Super bj’ and toddler sex abuse.”

Lori Handrahan, a social justice advocate working to bring the issue of child molestation to the spotlight, says everyone responsible for such a lax sentence should themselves also be investigated.

“When a police officer trading in brutal images and videos of small children being raped is given only 30 days in jail, that is a red flag of a corrupt judicial system,” said Handrahan. “The judge who gave this sentence should, herself, be investigated.”

Moen had been let go from his position with the Grand Isle Sheriff’s Office prior to his arrest. Moen’s employment was not terminated for misconduct; he was discharged without incident due to a lack of work.