Officers and medical personnel at the scene of a nonfatal Dec. 30, 2021, police shooting in Eureka. Photo by Thadeus Greenson, courtesy of the North Coast Journal
As you read this, more than 100 people have been killed by police officers in California so far this year, with more than 850 lives lost to police violence since the start of 2020.
It’s often the grim job of reporters to probe communities’ darkest moments in search of objective truth. It’s a daunting task, especially in the often emotionally charged cases of police shootings. And while there are internal departmental reviews designed to measure officers’ actions against policy and prosecutorial reviews to see if police acted lawfully, it’s often left to the media to produce a holistic account of what happened and examine whether things could have been done differently with the aim of informing community discussion and, possibly, reform. Our new Reporter’s Field Guide is a tool designed to inform that effort, explaining not just what the law says but how it can be used to generate the kind of impactful reporting that can lead to understanding and reform.
This guide is based on my 20 years of experience covering police and critical incidents, with input from the legal braintrust at FAC and feedback from working journalists and editors. I wish I’d had something like it in my newsrooms, and I’m thrilled to make it available to others.
It offers step-by-step instructions and reporting tips designed to help journalists access all the information they are entitled to about a police shooting and tools like template letters to help them navigate the obstacles to transparency they may encounter. Our hope is the guide will better enable journalists to create complete records of these shootings, documenting what happened, including whether it aligned with departmental policy and was looked at critically by investigating agencies.
If you’re a working journalist and would like an introduction to the Reporter’s Field Guide: Police Shootings, join us at 1 p.m. on Sept. 17 for a Zoom meeting at which we will give a brief overview, discuss how we put the guide together and answer questions. To register, click here. (I’d also love to hear any feedback you have on the guide, and see any of your stories it helps inform!)
Because police have the power of life or death in their hands, it’s imperative news organizations cover police shootings with depth and care to fulfill their role as the Fourth Estate. To that end, FAC is pleased to offer democracy’s watchdogs this new tool.