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Law Requiring Cops To Report How Many People They Shoot Awaits Obama's Signature

posted by Blackmoore on Tuesday December 16 2014, @08:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the too-many-to-count dept.

"gewg_" writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

Congress [just] passed a bill that could result in complete, national data on police shootings and other deaths in law enforcement custody.

Right now, we have nothing close to that. Police departments are not required to report information about police to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Some do, others don't, others submit it some years and not others or submit potentially incomplete numbers, making it near-impossible to know how many people police kill every year. Based on the figures that are reported to the federal government, ProPublica recently concluded that young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than whites.

Under the bill awaiting Obama's signature, states receiving federal funds would be required to report every quarter on deaths in law enforcement custody. This includes not [only] those who are killed by police during a stop, arrest, or other interaction. It also includes those who die in jail or prison. [Additionally,] it requires details about these shootings including gender, race, as well as at least some circumstances surrounding the death.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16 2014, @08:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16 2014, @08:39PM (#126611)

    Anyone know if there is some random pork or ear-mark included in the bill that would prevent or delay Obama's signature?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16 2014, @08:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16 2014, @08:50PM (#126615)

    It doesn't look like there is anything of the sort in the text.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 16 2014, @09:00PM

    by ikanreed (3164) on Tuesday December 16 2014, @09:00PM (#126618) Journal

    Or it's just got a set date of actual enaction written into the legislation and signing it right away won't be any different than signing it tomorrow.

    Most legislation does. Especially when it creates regulatory requirements for a diverse set of organizations.

    In fact, I'm willing to bet even odds it won't even start official tracking until 2016. In fact, forget the betting, here's the relevant text

    In General.--For each fiscal year (beginning after the date
    that is 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act), the head
    of each Federal law enforcement agency shall submit to the Attorney
    General a report (in such form and manner specified by the Attorney
    General) that contains information regarding the death of any person
    who is--

    That means the fiscal year AFTER 120 days after it's signed, or 2016.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday December 16 2014, @10:06PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday December 16 2014, @10:06PM (#126638)

      FY2016 starts on Oct 1st 2015, which is not excessively long after the arbitrary 120-day waiting period.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday December 16 2014, @09:09PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Tuesday December 16 2014, @09:09PM (#126620) Homepage

    I don't know, but what I can tell you is that the bag limit [wikipedia.org] will probably be higher for hunting Blacks than it will for Whites.