Los Angeles Police Department officers in riot gear look at protestors in the streets around Leimert Park following a prayer vigil against the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin on July 16, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.; Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
A plan was introduced this week that would require mandatory reporting by police departments to the department of justice in cases of officer involved shootings.
Introduced by U.S. Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer and Cory Booker, the bill requires law enforcement agencies nationwide to report to the Justice Department on any incident in which a law enforcement officer is involved in a shooting, and any circumstance that the use of force by or against a law enforcement officer or civilian results in a serious injury or death.
The federal government currently does not collect detailed records of people killed by police forces throughout the US. This bill aims to collect data about the people involved in the shootings so that law enforcement agencies can create better policies to protect police officers and the public. With police involved shootings on the rise, should this kind of reporting be mandatory? How much reporting is already done by police departments?
Guests:
Wesley Lowery, Reporter for the Washington Post who’s been looking in the statistics behind officer-involved shootings
David Klinger, author of Into the Kill Zone: A Cop’s Eye View of Deadly Force, and professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis; Former LAPD patrol officer
Tim Lynch, director of Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice and editor of PoliceMisconduct.net