Some agencies fail to report shootings
Law requires officer-involved incidents to be disclosed within 30 days, but violators face no repercussions
Sixteen officer-involved shootings have not been reported to the state attorney general as required under a groundbreaking new Texas law aimed at enhancing transparency in the often high-profile incidents.
At least 14 Texas law enforcement agencies failed to report 11 instances of an offi- cer shooting a civilian, including 10 deaths, an analysis of reports filed through Jan. 31 shows. Agencies also failed to report five incidents where officers were shot, including two deaths. Shootings are supposed to be reported within 30 days under the law, which took effect September 2015. But right now, there are no consequences for violators. The legislator who authored the reform hopes to change that.
“We need to fix the fact that we have a state law on the books that doesn’t carry with it any penalty,” said Rep. Eric John- son, D-Dallas. “That was the compromise that we settled on last session to get the bill done, and now we want to come back and button this up.”
So far, 106 law enforcement agencies have reported shooting 238 civilians, 105 fatally, as of Jan. 31. Agencies also reported 39 officers were shot, six of whom died.
But reports were still missing for at least 16 other shootings that injured four people and killed 12, according to a comparison of the data with other publiclyavailable information on shootings. Five missing reports stemmed from Harris County incidents. In one unreported case, an off-duty Precinct 1 reserve deputy was allegedly shot and injured by an acquain- tance to whom he’d given a ride. The passenger, Rajoun Johnson, was accused of striking the officer in the head with the butt of a handgun and attempting to rob him. Officer Courtney Armstead then exchanged fire with Johnson and was shot in the feet and thigh before Johnson ran away. Johnson was charged in October with aggravated armed robbery, Harris County records show.
Four Harris County agencies failed to file reports: Constable Precinct 1, Precincts 3 and 4 and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, records show. Reports also are overdue from sheriff’s departments in Ector, Bell, Montgomery, Refugio and
Wood counties; and police departments in Beaumont, Dallas, El Centro College, Euless and Marlin.
In April, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy in Victoria shot and killed a man who broke into her Victoria home. Refugio County did not file a report on the incident.
Sheriff Raul Gonzales said through a secretary that he believed no report was required since Deputy Tammy Gregory was offduty. Check the box
The Attorney General’s Office confirmed that the new statute requires agencies to report such shootings — the form contains a box to check if officers were “off-duty.”
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Ken Paxton, Kayleigh Lovvorn, said the office sent letters to all of Texas’ 2,500 law enforcement agencies informing them of the new law in 2015. If the office is notified about a missing report, they “will reach out to the agency to make them aware of the requirements.”
But Johnson wants more. Through a trio of bills he’s introduced, Johnson would tie compliance with the reporting requirement to grants that law enforcement agencies receive through the governor’s office. From September 2014 to August 2016, the Criminal Justice Division awarded $52 million in law enforcement grants, including $1 million to the Dallas Police Department and Dallas Area Rapid Transit in the aftermath of Micah Xavier Johnson’s ambush of officers guarding a protest last July. Eliminating confusion
Dallas Police Department quickly filed required reports describing the deaths of officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael Smith and Patrick Zamarripa, state records show. In January — six months later — DART Police Department reported the death of the fifth officer slain, Officer Brent Alan Thompson, and the injuries of three other officers.
But Dallas and El Centro College police still have not yet reported injuries of other officers who took fire.
And none of the agencies representing the dozen officers who fired at sniper Micah Xavier Johnson reported his death — he was shot, though the death was attributed to an exploding robot in a Dallas PD press release.
Rep. Eric Johnson doesn’t think the omissions by agencies in his district were intentional and has proposed two approaches — offering grant money to agencies that comply and withholding money from those who don’t. A third bill that is less likely in a tight budget year would establish a web portal for law enforcement to file reports online, complete with an interactive dashboard, analysis and visual data representations.
“We need to pass some combination of these bills to take away any possible confusion anyone has about what they have to do to comply,” Johnson said. “They have to know that this is a law they must comply with.”
The legislator already has won support for withholding funding for law violators from Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association. Lawrence said that law enforcement should absolutely be following the law.
“If there’s a statute that says you should do x, y and z, and you fail to do x, y and z, there should be some negative reinforcement,” Lawrence said. “We have always argued that more transparency is better — we assume that everything we do is open to the public.”
Amanda Woog, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas, had an early interest in the officerinvolved shooting data and contacted several agencies in the beginning to inform them of the requirements. She said it’s difficult to tell exactly how much information is missing. But even one missing is important, she said, adding, “It’s necessary that we know that all reports are submitted on time.” ‘Threat of punishment’
Incomplete information keeps researchers and politicians from being confident in police shooting data, which is being gathered to help generate proposals and policy changes. Last year, researchers deemed incomplete an older database of reports Texas law enforcement agencies also must file: reports on custodial deaths, which include fatal shootings and other deaths of people in jails and law enforcement custody.
Texas State University Professor Howard Williams and his co-researchers found that even with the threat of a Class B misdemeanor charge for non-reporting, about 200 deaths from 2005 to 2015 weren’t reported. And it’s unclear whether that penalty has ever been pursued by a Texas prosecutor.
“On the books, there’s a threat of punishment, but I don’t know of a single instance when it’s been used,” Woog said.