U.S. moves forward on plan to collect police use-of-force data

Reporting from WASHINGTON —  The Justice Department is moving forward with plans to collect data on how often law enforcement officers use force and how often civilians die during encounters with police or while in police custody, federal officials said Thursday.

FBI and Justice Department leaders say better information on police use of force is essential to build community trust and promote transparency. Demands for more complete data surfaced in particular in the last two years amid a series of high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of police officers, after the federal government could not say reliably how often fatal encounters occurred across the country.

“Accurate and comprehensive data on the use of force by law enforcement is essential to an informed and productive discussion about community-police relations,” Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch said in a written statement.

FBI Director James B. Comey said at a House hearing last month that in the absence of data, “we’re driven entirely by anecdote, and that’s a very bad place to be.”

The FBI plans to begin a pilot program early next year that would gather more complete use-of-force data, including data on cases that don’t result in death. The earliest participants would be the largest law enforcement agencies, as well as major federal agencies such as the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The program would then be expanded to include additional agencies across the country, which would be expected to regularly disclose whether a use-of-force instance resulted in death, injury or a firearm discharge in the direction of a person, according to a notice placed in the Federal Register.

Though there’s no legal requirement for law enforcement agencies to provide information on police force that doesn’t result in death — the 2014 Death in Custody Reporting Act covered only interactions in which individuals died — the Justice Department said it was asking local agencies to voluntarily disclose details on even nondeadly encounters. The FBI says it has begun work on an online system that will help individual agencies input that data.

Federal officials said they’ve already seen cooperation among local agencies in the reporting of nondeadly encounters.

In additional, Lynch has issued a memo to federal law enforcement agencies notifying them of their obligation to report deaths that occur in their custody.

ALSO

Clashes erupt in Portland, Ore., over new police rules

The cases might be rare, but these are the killers cops fear most

New Jersey, New York bomb suspect pleads not guilty in police shootings