Tell Harry Reid to move the Death in Custody Reporting Act
by digby
I wrote a piece for Salon yesterday about the odd fact that we don’t have a national database of police involve shootings and deaths at the hands of authorities. It seems like a useful bit of information:
The shooting of teenager Michael Brown has focused the nation (again) on the dangers faced by young, unarmed black men walking the streets of America. The sight of paramilitary police with guns pointed at peaceful protesters in a suburban town in the Midwest also got our attention. And as we wait for the legal system to determine if officer Darren Wilson will be held liable for the shooting, new questions are rising to the surface about the issue of officer-involved shootings in general. How often does this happen? How are these issues normally handled by prosecutors and the courts? And surprisingly, there is almost no way of knowing how often American citizens are killed at the hands of the authorities.
And check this out:
In 2000 Congress passed a bill called the Death in Custody Reporting Act with bipartisan support. According to its primary sponsor, Rep. Bobby Scott, it was designed to provide oversight over law enforcement during detention, arrest and imprisonment. Unfortunately, it expired in 2006 and despite Scott’s best efforts it hasn’t been renewed. It passed the House in 2009 and 2011 with overwhelming bipartisan support but went nowhere in the Senate each time. In 2011 it was actually sent to the full Senate but ran out of time before it was considered. It passed the House again in December of 2013, once more with bipartisan support. (How often does that happen in this Congress?) Since then it’s been sitting in the Senate where it seems to be waiting to die once again. If it doesn’t pass by the time Congress adjourns this fall it will have to start all over again.
The House (the House!)passed this bill. The Democratic Senate needs to pass it too and the president needs to sign it. And they need to do it now.
The NAACP sent out this action alert to its members on this last week. Click here to see the language if you’d care to join in.
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