For the First Time in US History The Federal Govt Will Track Killings by Police
The day before the two-year anniversary of officer Darren Wilson killing Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the federal government made a historic announcement. For the first time in history, the state will keep count of the people it kills while enforcing the law.
One would think that this number would already be particularly important when considering the public service that is policing. However, there has been no attempt at all to ever accurately account for those sent to an early grave by armed agents of the state.
Before May of 2013, there wasn’t even an independent recording authority on how many citizens were killed by cops. The FBI loosely estimated that number to be around 500 citizens annually. However, as we’ve pointed out, an independent investigation conducted by the Wall Street Journal found that hundreds of police killings were missing from the FBI’s tally.
Police departments were told that submitting the number of people they kill every year is voluntary. Since no department wants to be marked with a black veil of death, only a slight fraction of the 19,400 police departments across the country submitted these statistics. This resulted in a grossly underestimated number.
It’s an admitted fact that police shot and killed 24-year-old Albert Payton in front of his D.C. apartment in August 2012. However, according to the national statistics system setup to track police killings, Payton’s death never happened.
Payton’s death, as well as over 550 other police killings from 2007-2012 never happened, according to the national count. Also, in dozens of other cases where the killing was reported, it was attributed to the wrong agency.