Over 100 People Were Killed By Police In March. How Many More Will It Take?

Here’s a sta­tis­tic for you: It’s been 31 days since the release of the White House Task Force on 21^st Century Policing report, but the num­ber of fatal police encoun­ters is already over 100 and count­ing. That’s an aver­age of more than three peo­ple killed each day in March by police in America.

Too many of this mon­th’s vic­tims fit a pro­file we know all too well — unarmed men of col­or, some of whom have psy­chi­atric dis­abil­i­ties. Victims like Charly Keunang in Los Angeles, California; Tony Robinson in Madison, Wisconsin; Anthony Hill in DeKalb County, Georgia; and Brandon Jones in Cleveland, Ohio; con­firm that the prob­lems with polic­ing are nation­al in scope.

This isn’t a prob­lem con­cen­trat­ed in a few rogue police depart­ments. Even those police depart­ments with the best of inten­tions need reform. Take, for exam­ple, last week’sDepartment of Justice report that Philadelphia police shot 400 peo­ple — over 80 per­cent African-American — in sev­en years. This is in a city where the police com­mis­sion­er is an author of the very same White House task force report call­ing for police reform.

So clear­ly we must do more than read — or even write — these reports. Report rec­om­men­da­tions, sev­er­al of which are adopt­ed from ACLU rec­om­men­da­tions, must be imple­ment­ed. The task force report makes 63 rec­om­men­da­tions, but let’s focus on just two. Neither one is nov­el, but both are crit­i­cal to real police reform.

Deescalate Situations

This is stat­ing the obvi­ous, but clear­ly it needs to be repeat­ed — police depart­ments should adopt use-of-force poli­cies that empha­size de-escalation.

Excessive and dead­ly use of force, dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly against peo­ple of col­or and peo­ple with psy­chi­atric dis­abil­i­ties, is dri­ving nation­al dis­course. Jaywalking and sell­ing indi­vid­ual cig­a­rettes should not result in death — nor should fail­ing to take your med­ica­tion.

The ACLU told the task force that de-esca­la­tion, train­ing, and inci­dent review are nec­es­sary com­po­nents to any use-of-force pol­i­cy. The task force agreed, rec­om­mend­ing that, “Law enforce­ment agency poli­cies for train­ing on use of force should empha­size de-esca­la­tion and alter­na­tives to arrest or sum­mons in sit­u­a­tions where appropriate.”

DOJ’s Community Oriented Policing Services office must con­tin­ue work­ing with local police depart­ments to imple­ment appro­pri­ate use-of-force stan­dards. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment must com­mit the appro­pri­ate resources for this.

And par­tic­u­lar atten­tion must be paid to how these poli­cies are impact­ing peo­ple of col­or, peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, and oth­er mar­gin­al­ized pop­u­la­tions. Otherwise police will con­tin­ue to be seen as an oppres­sive force in cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties, there­by mak­ing com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing impossible.

Collect Data

The pub­lic needs legit­i­mate data col­lec­tion prac­tices that pro­mote trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty when police use unrea­son­able force. We need some­thing a lit­tle more thought­ful than a Google search to give us the stats on the num­ber of police shoot­ings — fatal or non­fa­tal — in any giv­en peri­od of time.

As the ACLU explained to the task force, data col­lec­tion and report­ing is the eas­i­est sin­gle thing any police depart­ment can do start­ing today. And it will offer the best depic­tion of what polic­ing in the 21^st cen­tu­ry looks like.

Both the ACLU and the task force rec­om­mend data col­lec­tion on a range of police and cit­i­zen encoun­ters — from stops and arrests to non­fa­tal and fatal police shoot­ings. “Policies on use of force,” the task force writes, “should also require agen­cies to col­lect, main­tain, and report data to the Federal Government on all offi­cer-involved shoot­ings, whether fatal or non­fa­tal, as well as any in-cus­tody death.” And data must be inclu­sive not just of race and gen­der but dis­abil­i­ty as well.

In order for local law enforce­ment to get seri­ous about data col­lec­tion, it may take the dan­gling of fed­er­al dol­lars. The recent­ly enact­ed Death in Custody Act, which requires data col­lec­tion on what the title sug­gests, is tak­ing that approach by penal­iz­ing non­com­pli­ant agen­cies through Department of Justice funds. Earlier man­datesaround data col­lec­tion — ones that allow law enforce­ment tovol­un­tar­i­ly report data with­out penal­ty –aren’t working.

The task force report — like so many oth­ers before it — has spelled out what’s need­ed for police reform. How many more reports or police shoot­ings do we need before we get to work?

This post first appeared on the ACLU’s “Blog of Rights.”