ST. LOUIS – Missouri police agencies remain slow to sign up for an FBI program that tracks police shootings, nearly two years after its launch.
The National Use-of-Force Data Collection gathers information on fatal and nonfatal shootings and also records instances when officers fire their weapons but no one is struck. Experts say collecting this data is essential to understanding how officers make life-and-death decisions.
At least seven people have died in St. Louis-area police shootings in 2020, including Mark Brewer, a 28-year-old burglary suspect who was shot and killed on Dec. 6 by a St. Louis officer.
Participation in the FBI's program is voluntary. The area's two largest departments — St. Louis city and county — began submitting incident reports within the past year, but few others across the state have signed up. As of November, only 21 out of about 600 agencies in Missouri have participated, up from 13 in 2019, and they represent at least 26% of sworn officers in the state, according to the FBI.
Other local police departments that had enrolled as of August include Ballwin, Brentwood, Clayton, Creve Coeur, Frontenac, Ladue, Rock Hill, Sullivan and Webster Groves.
Enrollment in Illinois is higher: 55 out of 983 agencies are contributing incident reports, representing at least 47% of officers. The only area agencies participating in Illinois are Mount Olive and Trenton.
Police shootings continue to elicit strong reactions locally and across the U.S. The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day led to marches and protests, including a violent night in downtown St. Louis during which four officers were shot.
Collecting and sharing data on the use of deadly force is something police can do, like accreditation, to show the public they have nothing to hide, said Webster Groves police Capt. Stephen Spear, whose department began participating in the FBI's program in January.
"We strive to present ourselves as a professional, open and transparent agency," Spear said.
Webster Groves is a community that typically sees few use-of-force incidents. This year it has reviewed only 11, Spear said, compared with 337 total arrests. But one of those was deadly: In May, an officer exchanged gunfire with 23-year-old Qavon Webb on Interstate 44. Webb was killed and the officer was wounded.
Spear said he plans to submit a report on the shooting to the FBI's use-of-force program once St. Louis County police complete their investigation, which has been underway for seven months.
When the time comes to enter data about the incident, Spear said he'll be answering a series of straightforward questions. What type of force did the officer use? What type of force did the suspect use? What type of injuries were there? Were they fatal?
The FBI's oversight ensures the use-of-force reports will be entered consistently across the U.S., Spear said, and that will lead to confidence in the data — once it's available to the public, anyway.
The FBI says it won't publish data until certain participation thresholds are met. It will begin sharing ratios and percentages when the FBI has data from agencies representing 60% of officers, and it will share aggregate data when they reach 80%.
Nationally, just over 5,000 agencies out of 18,500 are enrolled, representing 42% of sworn law enforcement officers.
