U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Photo courtesy of the National Review.
Summary: The Department of Justice will start collecting police shooting data on a national level.
As tensions build between minority communities and law enforcement, the Department of Justice has announced yesterday that it will start collecting data on police shootings. According to Buzzfeed, as of now, there is no national standard of collection and there is no such national database of information available to the public.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said that this pilot program will collect from the nation’s largest police departments, as well as federal agencies such as the FBI. At this time, they will not be obtaining information from all law enforcement agencies.
The data collection is a direct response to the series of high-profile deaths brought on by the police. In recent years, these deaths, especially the killings of unarmed black men, have sparked outrage. Political group, Black Lives Matter, have conducted protests across the country, asking for change and accountability.
Currently, no national program exists that collects data about officer-involved shootings. However, some local departments have kept their own records, but this information is often not available to the public or comprehensive, Buzzfeed reports.
“Accurate and comprehensive data on the use of force by law enforcement is essential to an informed and productive discussions about community-police discussions,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.
In addition to collecting data about police shootings, the DOJ seeks to gather other statistics regarding stops, use of force, and searches. Advocates said that this information can be used to determine how often police actually resort to force and what role race actually plays in these situations.
Source: Buzzfeed