State Attorney General Ferguson report to Legislature: Require law enforcement statewide to report all uses of deadly force

State Attorney General
Bob Ferguson

Attorney General Bob Ferguson today released a report to the Washington State Legislature recommending policies that require law enforcement to report information about incidents involving deadly force.

The report also recommends that the state create a centralized, publicly accessible website with information about these incidents.

Currently, there is no single location where the public and lawmakers can obtain information about the use of deadly force by law enforcement officers in Washington state.

Deadly force refers to firearms discharges and incidents resulting in death or serious physical injury.

Some individual law enforcement agencies have chosen to make deadly force incident information routinely available, but transparency is not consistent across the state and the information is not compiled in one place.

In 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigation created a national use-of-force reporting program, but the program is voluntary and only 10 percent of Washington law enforcement agencies currently participate. In addition, the information reported to that program is not publicly available.

More information HERE