While the government keeps a database of how many officers are killed in the line of duty each year, there is no comprehensive database or record of officer-involved shootings. Instead, law enforcement agencies are simply allowed to self-report officer-involved shootings as “justifiable homicides” in the FBI's annual report.
However, According to Michael Planty, a statistician for the Justice Department.
The FBI’s justifiable homicides estimates have significant limitations in terms of coverage and reliability that are primarily due to agency participation and measurement issues.
Big surprise, but that is not all. Michael Planty also states that the Justice Department has no information at the national level for police shootings that result in non-fatal injury. Is it any wonder then, that with no accountability and no scrutiny, police officers have become all too eager to shoot first...and call their union reps sooner than later.
In the six minutes after police officer, Peter Liang, discharged a single bullet that struck Akai Gurley, 28, he and his partner couldn’t be reached, according to what sources told the New York Daily News. Instead of calling for help for the dying man, Liang was texting his union representative.
Or perhaps it is the 1033 program that is predisposing officers to the use of unnecessary force.
Earlier this month, a veteran Monterey Bay police officer, was slapped with a "failure to act" complaint, and ultimately served with a notice of termination for refusing to use his taser on an emotionally distraught student.
According to reports, the situation escalated when the officer stepped away to get the student a glass of water. After the student became agitated again, the two remaining officers were forced to restrain him and use, not one, but two stun guns in those efforts. When they asked the other officer to use his taser to help control the student’s legs, he refused, saying that it was not justified, nor in the young man's best interest.
Of course the Marina Police Department believes that the officer should have used his taser to subdue the student, for the student's safety (he was threatening to kill himself). However, considering that he already had two officers, with two stun guns restraining him, it seems more than rational to refuse using a third. Perhaps this is what police training and police officers are sorely lacking, rational thinking.
http://stop1033.org/