Unreported shootings may trigger fines

Bill awaiting Abbott’s OK seeks to ensure police agencies comply with state data law

A bill that would penalize law enforcement agencies up to $1,000 a day for each day they fail to report an officer-involved shooting to the state now awaits the governor’s signature before it becomes law.

House Bill 245 is a follow-up to the 2015 House Bill 1036 — a similar bill sponsored by Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas. Johnson wrote the bills after being troubled by the lack of transparency behind police shootings and inadequate data collection about those shootings by state and federal agencies.

Last week the Texas House passed the new bill, 112 to 21. On Tuesday the Senate approved it 28 to 3, sending it Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

Unlike the FBI database and similar federal and state databases that collect only justified shootings, the 2015 bill required all law enforcement agencies to report to the Office of the Attorney General all officer-involved shootings, fatal and nonfatal.

The data are compiled in a new state database that tracks cases across Texas.

Database shows gaps

The 2015 bill was praised, but a handful of agencies were not reporting, Johnson said in April, adding that he did not believe their intentions were malicious.

With no enforcement measures in place, it was impossible to ensure agencies were complying with the state law. Johnson hopes his new bill will increase the database’s effectiveness and reliability.

Johnson was not available for immediate comment but issued a brief statement.

“In order to address officerinvolved shootings and peace officer safety, it is important that we have accurate data relating to violent interactions between civilians and the police,” he said in the release.

He said the new bill goes a long way toward helping Texas reduce the number of fatal encounters involving law enforcement.

In less than two years, the state database on fatal use of police force created by the 2015 bill illustrated the gaps in federal records.

In 2016, Texas officers killed people at a rate at least double the numbers reported annually in the federal database for more than a decade, a Houston Chronicle analysis reported in April.

The state database shows Texas police officers killed 83 people in 2016.

That was 53 more homicides than the number found in FBI data for the same year.

Steps in the right direction

States, including Texas, still submit justified homicides to the FBI, but there’s one important caveat — all submissions are voluntary, a Texas Commission on Law Enforcement spokeswoman said.

Experts say that caveat reduces the accuracy of the data. But they agree the new 2015 bill and House Bill 245 are steps in the right direction to restoring trust in public officials and police officers. For years, some communities have protested that they’ve been unfairly targeted by police officers whose shootings get under-counted in federal data.

But without a system of accountability, state officials have maintained they lacked the means or the facts to react.

Researchers and other advocacy groups, such as the Texas Justice Initiative led by Amanda Woog, for years have presented findings that sought to challenge the federal data. Woog is a University of Texas researcher and criminology expert.

She said if state and local governments want to regain public trust, they will have to take additional steps to increase transparency.

“Watchdogs can only do so much, and that work does nothing to engender public trust,” she said. “If anything, it may further erode it.”

It’s up to state leaders mend the relationship, she said.