FBI Director: "It's Ridiculous That I Can't Tell You How Many People Get Shot By Police"

At Georgetown University on Thursday, FBI Director James Comey said the nation is at a “crossroads”
 on matters of race relations and law enforcement. 

FBI Director James Comey Wades Into Contentious Debate Over Policing And Race
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/12/385793958/fbi-director-wades-into-contentious-debate-over-policing-and-race

Excerpt from Comey's Georgetown speech: 
"It's ridiculous that I can't tell you how many people were shot by police in this country - last week, last month, last year the last decade. It's ridiculous."

We still know little about when and why police use their weapons. That’s about to change

 Max Ehrenfreund February 13

The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had the same questions as many Americans after a police officer shot and killed an unarmed young black man in Ferguson, Mo. last summer. In a speech Thursday at Georgetown University, director James B. Comey recounted asking his staff how frequently police officers shot and kill civilians, who those civilians are, and how the figures had changed over time. That information, he was surprised to learn, is not available.

"Data seems like a dry and boring word, but without we cannot understand our world," Comey said, echoing Attorney General Eric Holder's call last month for better data on when and how police use force.

"Without complete and accurate data, we are left with ideological thunderbolts," Comey said, promising to encourage police chiefs around the country to share information.

Advocates for civil liberties have long protested against this gap in the government's collection of data on the criminal justice system. As I wrote when Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson:

News reports of officer-involved shootings are fairly regular across the country, but there are no national, comprehensive statistics on these incidents, so it is impossible to say how frequently they happen. Information about those struck by police bullets is also unavailable -- whether they are unarmed or carrying a weapon, criminals or innocent bystanders, black or white. Reliable data would make it easier for citizens to know when officers are acting recklessly, and for police departments to develop methods of avoiding the use of lethal force.

Meanwhile, an organization of scholars and law enforcement officers based at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been working to correct the problem. Working with several police departments around the country, they expect to begin collecting data on stops and the use of force in the next few months, said Phillip Atiba Goff, one of the founders of the group, which is called the Center for Policing Equity.

While the database will be far from comprehensive, it will allow researchers to begin answering some of Comey's basic questions.

The data seems likely to confirm that minorities are more likely to be the targets of force deployed by police, including deadly force. Yet Goff predicted that in some cases the evidence could vindicate law enforcement, who are wrongly faulted for bias when society as a whole is to blame for putting people of color afoul of the law.

When a mentally ill woman can't afford medication, her neighbors are more likely to call the police to her home. When a young man with a high school diploma can't find work, he's more likely to turn to crime to support himself.

Goff also noted that available data on stops and arrests do not distinguish between those contacts with the public that were initiated by the police and those that were requested by civilians. In neighborhoods at a certain level of segregation for example, whites might be more likely to call the dispatcher when they see a black person walking down the street. An officer arrives, finds some illegal activity, and makes an arrest. Regardless of whatever biases the police themselves hold, it isn't their fault if they ignore crimes committed by whites in the same neighborhood, because they aren't notified of them.

"It ends up being the prejudices of community that drive law enforcement outcomes," Goff said. "It sucks to get blamed for something that’s not your fault, and law enforcement is getting blamed for that every day around these issues." Equipped with detailed data on the targets of force deployed by police -- who they are and where they live -- Goff and other researchers will be better able to apportion responsibility for racial disparities in the criminal justice system between law enforcement and society at large.

In his speech, Comey also argued that cops get a bad rap.

"So many boys and young men grow up in environments lacking role models, adequate education, and decent employment. They lack all sorts of opportunities that most of us take for granted," he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misspelled Phillip Atiba Goff's first name. This version has been corrected.

Max Ehrenfreund is a blogger on the Financial desk and writes for Know More and Wonkblog.