(The Center Square) – As the Washington Data Exchange for Public Safety publishes for the first time data on police use of force incidents, concerns remain regarding the sharing of certain information with Washington State University.
As part of WADEPS, WSU employees overseeing the project have sought computer aided dispatch data, or CAD data. However, the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information System regulates how that data is shared, with restrictions imposed on providing it to non-law enforcement organizations. Last year, a meeting with the Washington State Emergency Management Division to discuss data user agreements to provide CAD data from 911 call centers was cancelled after concerns were raised about how sharing the information with WSU, a public university, would make that restricted data subject to public disclosure in violation of the CJIS rules.
According to WADEPS website, only 10 agencies have currently provided CAD data out of 252 agencies included in the database, though tribal law enforcement agencies are not legally required to participate.
According to records obtained by The Center Square through a public records request, WADEPS team members held various pilot focus groups last year, including the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. According to a WADEPS summary of the meeting, “LE [law enforcement] agency representatives also expressed concern over the requested CAD data. The research team was asked whether the CAD data would be high-level or narrative and why CAD data would be collected. There were also concerns regarding the skew in CAD data, such as situations where the initial call type might not match the end call type.”
The meeting summary further noted that “in addition, depending on officer assignments (Patrol, Cold Case, Narcotics, etc.), there may be use-of-force incidents not accompanied by CAD data. There were also questions regarding how the CAD narrative data could be reported globally. Lastly, concerns were expressed over the cost of transferring the CAD data to the research team.”
When The Center Square reached out to WASPC, Executive Director Steve Strachan wrote that “WASPC has a group of our member representatives working cooperatively with the WADEPS program to discuss issues of concern. Those conversations are ongoing as the program rolls out this fall.”
In 2021, the state Legislature enacted Senate Bill 5259, which tasked the State Attorney General’s Office to put out a request for proposal for an institution of higher learning to build the database, with the intent of making such information available for the public to view and download. The contract was eventually awarded to WSU, a client of the AGO, which was the only bidder on the project.
After WADEPs posted its initial data on police use of force incidents, Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs Executive Director Teresa Taylor put out a statement saying “as we all dive into this data for the first time, we want to caution against drawing hasty conclusions. The experts at WADEPS deserve time to analyze this information before releasing their official report later this year. Only once the data has been appropriately analyzed by the experts will we be able to create real, actionable policy solutions that bolster community policing and trust across Washington.”
