The newly created White House panel on policing will consider establishing a national repository that tracks all manner of civilian deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers. It's part of an effort to re-establish trust between police and the communities they serve, the co-chairman of the committee said.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, tapped by the Obama administration to help bolster law enforcement's standing in the wake of national unrest stirred by a series of killings of young black men by white officers, said that the long-standing gap in police reporting "needs to be addressed.''
"It will be on the table, no question,'' Ramsey told USA Today.
The most prominent record of civilian fatalities — the FBI's annual report of justifiable homicides by police — was described by Ramsey as "hit or miss'' because of its reliance on voluntary reporting by police agencies, a practice that results in a partial accounting.
