City Council Wants More Info on Police Weapon Use

New York City Council is requiring the NYPD to keep more detailed and easily accessible information about the use of their firearms. (Right to Left) council members Peter Vallone, Christine Quinn, and Robert Jackson. (Jonathan Weeks/Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—New York City Council held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss how they will require the police to be more accountable for the use of their weapons.

“Today we will vote on an important piece of legislation that will require that the New York Police Department submits annual reports to the city council,” said Council Speaker Christine Quinn, ”Annual reports that detail the circumstances surrounding incidents where officers fire their weapons.”

In the past the Police Department was not required to disclose biographical information about individuals who were involved in a police-shooting incident. Officers were not required to submit firearm discharge data to the Council.

These reports will require a precinct-by-precinct and borough-by-borough breakdown of incidents. They will show the reason for the firearm discharge (accidental, adversarial, etc) and the race, gender, and age of any individual engaged in an adversarial conflict with an officer or a third party that results in a firearm discharge.

“We started with crime in parks and crime in schools; we got that information. Now we’re going to get detailed information whenever an officer discharges their weapon,” said Public Safety Chair Peter Vallone Jr. “We haven’t determined that there’s a problem in this area, in fact the police department in 1997 discharged their weapons 253 times and in 2007 only 111 times so they’re making remarkable progress. In 111 shootings, and 30-40 of those were against dogs, in a city of over 8 million people is an amazing leap.

“One of the things we found out was that prior to this piece of legislation the Police Department actually kept fairly detailed data whenever a police officer shot or attempted to shoot a dog,” said Quinn. “They would have to make note of the breed of the dog, the age of the dog, and the gender of the dog.

There were no similar requirements if a police officer shot at or attempted to shoot at a human being.”
“Well, it seems clearly absurd that we would have a level of data recording required for shooting an animal, but have far less required for shooting or attempting to shoot at a human being,” said Quinn.

“I think requiring the Police Department to keep that data will in fact create within the department their own review and their own consciousness about this type of data,” said Quinn.

“This data will be information the Council will be getting on a regular basis and it will be tabulated in a form that will be very user-friendly and accessible,” said Quinn, “And it will allow us to really track the NYPD’s firearm use year to year.”