Congress finally going to make police report how many people they kill. http://t.co/3gd2Qtltce pic.twitter.com/FboiRrFHkJ
— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) December 17, 2014
Mother Jones, from the link:
… Last week, Congress passed the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013. Currently awaiting Obama’s signature, it mandates that states receiving federal criminal justice assistance grants report, by gender and race, all deaths that occur in law enforcement custody, including any while a person is being detained or arrested. This would include events like the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, says Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a sponsor of the bill, in an interview with Mother Jones.
The bill also mandates that federal law enforcement agencies annually gather and report these deaths to the US attorney general, who in turn has two years to analyze the data, determine if and how it can be used to reduce the number of such deaths, and file a report to Congress.
The bill is backed by groups like the NAACP, which argue that it will increase accountability and transparency. The process it envisions would collect more data than the FBI’s existing Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which only tallies what are considered “justifiable” homicides by police, a designation that can criminalize victims of police killings. As DIY databases have cropped up—the Killed by Police Facebook page, for instance, gets its stats by aggregating news stories—the bill could establish a more accurate and official repository…
The bill that passed last week aims to force reporting by tying law enforcement funding to cooperation: States that fail to report police-involved killings can lose up to 10 percent of their federal law enforcement grants. However, it’s up to the attorney general to mete out fines. “Hopefully there will be better compliance and enforcement than existed then, and also more cooperation,” Blumenthal says. “There’s certainly more awareness now about the importance of this data, and much more focus on it.”
More detail at the link.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) introduces bill to improve collection of nationwide data on fatal police shootings: pic.twitter.com/TYDXwEUKNO
— CJ Ciaramella (@cjciaramella) December 12, 2014
Geeno
Good luck – with That.
The levels of trust here approach the naive.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geeno: Please define “that” and here.”
Violet
Glad someone is doing something. Step in the right direction.
Mike J
Cohen is a good guy.
smintheus
Steve Cohen … he’s the liberal Dem whom EMILY’s List tried to whack back in 2008, just because they thought they could.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Good.
lamh36
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Kudos to him.
Edmund Dantes
Wow. So they are finally going to enforce the law from 2000? Are they actually going to collect the data this time? LoL
srv
You know, in some states, collecting this data will lead to Governors asking “Why haven’t you made your quota?”
Gov. (R.) certainly can’t run on “Deaths of blahs have dropped 20% under mah watch”
Omnes Omnibus
@Edmund Dantes: Progress is progress. Would you rather the data wasn’t gathered?
Edmund Dantes
No. I’m saying I’ll be shocked they collect it. They didn’t collect it the last time they passed this law.
What’s going to be different this time?
Progress means moving forward. This law doesn’t do this. It simply restates that we should collect data that we said we should collect the last time it was passed.
Progress is them actually collecting it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Edmund Dantes: Quoi?
Citizen_X
Fuck the cynical fucks here. This is a good thing.
Yes, it requires enforcement. By the Attorney General. You know, part of the Executive Branch. Which from 2000 to 2008, was run by Bush, who didn’t give a shit.
This is example # 20,542 of why Any Democratic President Is Light Years Better Than Any Republican President.
But the cynical fucks want to convince you otherwise. Fuck ’em.
ruemara
@Citizen_X: You mean whomever holds the reins of government affects which laws are passed, how they’re enforced and if they’re enforced at all? Color me shocked.
Seth Owen
The difference this tine is that there is an enforcement mechanism with a penalty for noncompliance, which I don’t believe was the case before.
And yes, this idea reason why any Democrat would be preferable to any Republican so make sure you vote in 2016.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Non-compliance means loss of up to 10% of their toys. Would that one could slice up an APC…
Good first step; ultimately the law will be as good as the administration enforcing it. Good news now, and incentive for ’16, for those paying attention.
p.a.
This passed a Republican Congress? How?
p.a.
Edit: Republican House? I have not seen any pigs flying!
bago
Count the bodies and the bodies will count back.
Geeno
That = getting an honest count. Here = this endeavor.
The people with the most motive to fudge the numbers are still the people doing the counting.
Lurking Canadian
How did this get through Congress? We’re Boehner and McConnell asleep?
low-tech cyclist
The funny thing is, very detailed stats are kept on deaths OF law enforcement officers.
And last year was the safest year to be a cop since automobiles became a risk factor in their lives. Per the link, only 100 police died last year, which was the lowest number since 1944 (when there were a lot fewer police) and the third-lowest number since 1910.
And of those 100 police deaths last year, only 33 were killed with someone’s weapon: 31 shot, 2 stabbed. (43 deaths were vehicle-related, 13 died due to job-related illnesses, 6 died in falls, and so on.)
So if the police are killing 1,000 people a year, they’re dealing out 30 deaths for every police officer killed by assailants. In the least risky time to be a cop during the past century or more, this seems like a strange way to serve and protect.
Lurking Canadian
@low-tech cyclist: the safety record proves the shoot first rule is working. /wingnut
Z
I both hope and do not hope that it’s a coincidence Ciaramella’s twitter avatar is the cover of the album “Screaming For Vengeance.” Cuz, seriously.