By Brandon Mulder
Midland Reporter-Telegram
DALLAS — Lawmakers recently passed a law that would require police agencies state-wide to report all officer involved shootings to the Texas Attorney General’s Office, whether that be officers doing the shooting or officers being shot at. That law went into effect last month and shortly thereafter was made available to the public online.
Each report details the demographics of both the officer and the other party involved in the shooting, the incident that led to the shooting, and whether the victim was exhibiting a deadly weapon. However, the reports either the officers’ or suspects’ names to be identified, keeping the data to be strictly used for trend analysis and policy decisions.
A report is only required when a party is injured or killed in a shooting incident. Since the law went live on Sept. 1, seven reports have been filed in the attorney general’s office. Of the seven, all are related to incidents where officers fired at citizens -- three of which resulted in death.
The law has also set up a parallel reporting system to report shootings of police officers by citizens, however no incidents related to citizen’s fine at officers have been reported. All reports must be filed within 30 days of the incident, and the OAG must post the report online within five days of receiving it.
The requirements for filing a report cast a wide net that can document any incident, no matter how consequential. One report details an incident in which an “accidental discharge ricochet during range activities” and resulted in “minor injury,” according to a report filed by the Plano Police Department. Another involved the shooting of a vicious dog by the Balch Springs Police Department.
Others, however, illustrate more fatal incidents. In one instance filed last Thursday, two Alvin Police Department officers fatally shot at a 29-year-old white male while executing a warrant. The man allegedly exhibited a deadly weapon, according to the report.
“I believe law enforcement’s commitment to transparency by complying with the reporting law will go a long way in strengthening and building trust between police and the people they serve,” said Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas, in a press release last week.
Johnson’s bill, which was filed and passed unanimously last session, stemmed from a Dallas PD initiative that posted online a comprehensive database of Dallas police shootings of the last 13 years, according to a Dallas Morning News report.
“In an effort to increase transparency, officer accountability, and improve officer safety, I have directed the implementation of numerous policy changes and initiatives,” wrote Dallas Police Chief David Brown on the department’s public information webpage. “A number of these changes came after an officer involved shooting in 2012,” in which an officer shot 31-year-old James Harper who attempted to flee an altercation with the officer, according to a local report.
That incident, along with several others, sparked public outcry in Dallas which in turn lead to the city’s own online database. In a similar way, Johnson’s bill has been a response to the national controversies in which officers have shot unarmed black men in several cities around the country.
In the last decade, Midland Police have been involved in 14 shootings,
10 of which have resulted in death. One of those incidents includes the murder-suicide of MPD officer Chad Simpson last winter. The most recent incident includes the shooting death of Joe Nevels, who refused to surrender to police while wielding a box cutter. Nevels was shot multiple times by two officers outside of Bill’s Bottle Shop on Neely Avenue and Midland Drive last summer.
Copyright 2015 the Midland Reporter-Telegram