Endorsements and editorials are made solely by the ownership of this newspaper. As is the case at most newspapers across the nation, The Spokesman-Review newsroom and its editors are not a part of this endorsement process. (Learn more.)

Editorial: State attorney general advances the conversation about race and law enforcement

July 2, 2020 Updated Fri., July 3, 2020 at 5:16 p.m.

Americans are engaged in a long-overdue conversation about race and policing. Last week, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson waded into it with some smart proposals about tracking police use of deadly force and better recognizing and responding to bias crimes.

One of the greatest hindrances to reform and broad conversations about issues of race and law enforcement has been a lack of credible data. Ferguson wants to change that. He released a 13-page report that urges the Legislature to create a statewide system that will allow anyone to find out about incidents in which officers use deadly force. Many law enforcement agencies already track that sort of information internally, but they don’t like to share it.

That secrecy has hampered reasonable conversations about reform. It’s hard to discuss an issue when its scope and true nature are not known.

Under Ferguson’s proposal, police, sheriffs and other law enforcement agencies have to report incidents to an FBI national use-of-force database. Because the FBI system already exists, there would be little upfront cost related to that aspect of the new system. Only some modest training would be required.

Getting the information out to the public would take a little more work. Ferguson suggests funding a state data portal that anyone could access. It would allow researchers, activists, journalists and regular Washingtonians to check in on incidents that occur in the state. It also would help identify officers who jump from one agency to another after an incident, though on that front a unified, accessible national system really is needed.

The state reporting system would contain the sort of data points one might expect. Who did what, where and when? What type of force was used? What weapon did the member of the public have, if any? What injuries occurred? And what were the demographics of the officers and the public (age, sex, race, ethnicity)?

All of that data can help shed light on systemic racism, especially racism that departments might not even be aware of. Good data makes for good policy reforms.

Two other things to be included in the data are especially important. First, did the incident result in a payment or legal settlement? The public ought to know how much taxpayer money (or insurance money) is being spent on incidents involving use of deadly force. A dollar amount often brings clarity and attention to an issue.

Second, the system would collect information about how the encounter started. That matters a lot. When officers initiate a stop, they do so with a certain frame of mind. They have a rough idea of the situation and are trained for it. Many incidents that end violently, however, are initiated by members of the public.

When someone calls 911 and says, “The suspect is a Black man, and I think he has a gun,” it puts officers on alert. They are looking for someone matching a particular racial profile, and they are on heightened alert for a weapon in the encounter. If it turns out that many encounters that end badly are civilian-initiated, that says something about the public’s biases, not just law enforcement’s. As in so many things, the context matters.

Also last week, Ferguson’s Multidisciplinary Hate Crime Advisory Working Group released its report to the Legislature and Gov. Jay Inslee. Its more-expansive recommendations cover everything from additional training for law enforcement, ways for prosecutors to reform their practices, improvements for K-12 schools and sharing more information about bias crimes in workplaces across the state. The full list contains 20 recommendations, all of them worth a public conversation and consideration by the Legislature.

Whenever lawmakers next convene in Olympia – whether in a special session or next year – addressing equity and systemic racism must be a top priority. Ferguson has provided an outline for that conversation. That measured approach is much preferable to the burn-down-the-system idea on display among some activists in places like Seattle’s recently shut-down Capital Hill Autonomous Zone/Organized Protest.

Ferguson’s reports are not the end of the conversation, but they are an excellent place to start.