FBI to expand its system for tracking police shootings

By 2017, the FBI will replace its current system for tracking police shootings, expanding the data it gathers and for the first time recording incidents where officers cause death or serious injury to civilians after hitting, kicking, or using stun guns or pepper spray against them.

Stephen L. Morris, assistant director of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division of the FBI, told The Washington Post the agency is "responding to a real human outcry. People want to know what police are doing, and they want to know why they are using force. It always fell to the bottom before. It is now the highest priority." The system now is a "travesty," Morris said, and it's likely that under the new system the FBI will collect data on the gender and race of suspects and officers, any weapons at the scene, and the threat level faced by the officer.

Morris said that instead of tallying up incidents at the end of the year, the information will be released "near real-time." The FBI has had difficulty gathering data because police departments voluntarily share information on officer-involved shootings, and since 2011, less than 3 percent of 18,000 state and local agencies have participated, the Post says.

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