‘Use of force’ reports should be examined

In the past six years, police in Connecticut have killed 24 people. Though the number may be statistically insignificant considering the thousands of contacts with the public police have every day, to the friends and families of those killed it surely is too many.

Though all deaths for which reviews are completed were deemed justified, the investigations have taken so long that facts do not surface for a year or more. The result is a blanket of silence around the incident. The public is in the dark and the police officers’ lives are in limbo.

An analysis by Hearst Connecticut Media showed that for the fatal police shootings since 2013 more than 14 months, on average, elapsed before investigators released their final report to the public.

Granted, the investigations by a state’s attorney’s office involve multiple layers of evidence, from eye witness accounts to reviews of body cam and police cruiser videos, but the reviews should be conducted as a top priority. Public accountability and police credibility are at stake.

Surprisingly, data on fatalities caused by police is not readily available to the public. Police are required to file a “use of force” report with the state after deploying a stun gun, but not when firing a gun with bullets that results in death.

The General Assembly can — and should — fix the disparity this legislative session. Require police departments to file the “use of deadly force” reports for nonTaser situations to a central repository, such as the Racial Profiling Prohibition Project at Central Connecticut State University, where traffic stops by police already are collected.

An independent examination of the data can uncover characteristics, such as whether the rates of death for one racial group are disproportionate, or patterns, such as police officers’ years of service.

Awareness of the patterns can lead to solutions, such as increased training, revised protocols or racial sensitivity instruction.

Connecticut should take lessons from the conflicts and suspicions seen elsewhere in the country.

The 2014 death of Michael Brown Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old black man, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked national protests and a focus on the use of deadly force by police. More protests followed the shooting death of 22-year-old Stephon Clark in Sacramento, who was unarmed and holding a cell phone in his grandmother’s backyard when police fired 20 rounds at him.

In 2013 Connecticut had nine fatal police shootings. The numbers have gone up and down since then, and include the high profile shooting of 15-year-old Jayson Negron in Bridgeport in 2017. Two fatal shootings by police occurred in 2018, including 45-year-old Paul Arbitelle in Danbury, who police say had a knife.

An examination of data would not second-guess the decisions made by police in heated, quick-acting situations. It is not a matter of the police versus the public. Rather, an impartial look at data for trends or patterns would be better for everyone.

Police are required to file a “use of force” report with the state after deploying a stun gun, but not when firing a gun with bullets that results in death.