Police will be required to report officer-
involved deaths under new US system
Federal officials will actively work to confirm fatal cases rather than wait for
voluntary reports in new methodology influenced by Guardian’s The Counted.
The methodology of the new system, aims to replace a discredited count by the FBI.
Announcing a new program for documenting all “arrest-related deaths”, federal officials said they would actively work to confirm fatal cases seen in media reports rather than wait for departments to report them voluntarily.
Officials estimate that this year alone there will be about 2,100 arrest-related deaths across the US involving 1,066 different police departments. The BJS criteria includes a wide range of deaths.
Under the new government program,
all 19,450 American law enforcement agencies will be sent a form by the BJS
that requires information on
all the department’s arrest-related deaths in the past quarter of the year.
Deaths that were already noticed in media reports will be listed by the BJS for confirmation or correction by the local departments. Space will be included for the local department to list additional deaths that were not previously noticed. Departments that have seen no arrest-related deaths that quarter will be asked to return “an affirmative zero” saying so.
A second form seeking extensive information about the circumstances of each death will be sent to the local department responsible.
It will require local officials to detail similar data to that logged by The Counted, such as demographic information on every person killed, how the deadly encounter began and whether the person was armed.
Other forms will be sent to the 685 medical examiner’s and coroner’s asking them to
confirm details of deaths that have been noticed in public sources. They, too, will be asked to return forms with
details of any other deaths that went unnoticed.
The BJS ran a previous arrest-related deaths count that was shuttered in April 2014, four months before national controversy following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, in Ferguson, Missouri.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ent-of-justice