Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Law Requiring Cops To Report How Many People They Shoot Awaits Obama's Signature | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 45 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 17 2014, @04:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 17 2014, @04:15AM (#126740)

    Being a cop doesn't even make the top 10 among most-dangerous jobs. [businessinsider.com]

    Want props for having a dangerous job?
    Try commercial fisherman or lumberjack or farmer.

    The FBI says [fbi.gov]

    among the 76 men and women killed in the line of duty during 2013, 27 died as a result of felonious acts, and 49 died in accidents

    So, about twice as many cops died from hot-dogging it in their squad cars (probably in hot pursuit of a litterbug or somebody who didn't use his seat belt) than from any actual threat.

    --gewg_