Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson speaks to The Chronicle Editorial Board in Centralia in this January 2016 file photo.
Law enforcement should be required to report deadly force and the incidents should be gathered in a statewide database accessible by the public, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Tuesday.
He made the recommendations in a 13-page report to the state Legislature.
The plan "will shed light on how frequently police and security guards use deadly force and the circumstances under which it occurs," Ferguson wrote in the report. "With these insights, we can enact policies to make our communities safer."
Currently, there is no law that requires law enforcement to report use-of-force incidents resulting in death or serious injury.
The FBI last year launched a National Use-of-Force Data Collection Program, but use of the system is voluntary.
About 10 percent of Washington law enforcement agencies use the program, according to the Attorney General's Office.
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It was not immediately clear which, if any, agencies in Pierce County report deadly force to the FBI.
Under Ferguson's plan, law enforcement would be required to report deadly force through the FBI's program, and the state would create a centralized website with statewide information that would be searchable by the public.
The FBI's database is not available to the public.
Included in the database would be the date and location of each incident, the involved agency, type of force used, whether the citizen used a weapon, any injuries, reason for the contact by police, agency or team investigating the incident and demographic information on the involved officers and citizens, including race, gender, age and ethnicity.
The report also suggests requiring state-level auditing of the use-of-force data and requiring armed professionals such as security guards to report similar incidents to the state Department of Licensing, which would be responsible for submitting data to the statewide program.
Last week, Ferguson announced a statewide investigation would be conducted into 30 cases where police killed or injured people this year.
The review is meant to determine whether law enforcement is complying with Initiative 940, a new law requiring independent investigations and banning police from looking into its own use of force.
Included in the review are the following local cases: the fatal shooting of Said Joquin by Lakewood police, a non-fatal shooting by Puyallup police, the death of Manuel Ellis while being restrained by Tacoma police, the fatal shooting of Brandon Stokes by the Pierce County Sheriff's Department and a non-fatal shooting by deputies.
