By Amanda Lee Myers
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — From a broken bone to a fatal shooting, all 800 police departments in California must begin using a new online tool launched Thursday to report and help prove or inform policy? How do we make sure it’s not too big?” Erlich said. “Capturing stubbed toes muddies the data but not capturing broken bones would be a huge miss.”
California’s efforts come as the FBI has made data collection a priority in the wake of a number of officer-involved deaths of unarmed black people across the country.
Last year, the FBI announced it would begin collecting all use-of-force data and make it public, though departments don’t have to participate.
FBI Director James Comey has expressed frustration over the absence of nationwide use-of-force data and said its collection will “dispel misperceptions, foster accountability and promote transparency.”
California’s police departments will report their use-of-force data to the state once a year beginning in January. It will be made public as early as the spring.
Until now, California only tracked deaths in custody, not non-lethal uses of force. And it did so using paper forms.
“This is hugely important,” said Peter Bibring, director of police practices at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “We’re not taking use of force seriously until we’re tracking information about every use-of-force incident.”
Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, said she thinks the new data will show a pattern of abuse across the state. But actually collecting that data is positive, she said.
“We live in a culture that perpetuates racism and we need to be able to verify that racism through data,” she said. “For the people who continue to deny racial disparities exist in this country, this data will allow us to have those living room and dinner conversations and share facts.”
Many in law enforcement think the data will show just how rare force incidents are, said Louis Dekmar with the International Association of Chiefs of Police and chief of the LaGrange Police Department in Georgia.
But the data also will help pinpoint excessive force and help departments make key changes, he added.
“I see it as something long overdue,” Dekmar said. “When we screw up we should own up to it and do something to fix it.”
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