NC criminal justice group launches database to track reports of police misconduct
Emancipate NC, a Durham-based criminal justice organization, has launched a platform to track police misconduct throughout North Carolina.
The non-profit said its online tool will allow people to report negative experiences with law enforcement officers, and that community responses will be used to form a database.
“(We want) to create an institutional memory about law enforcement officers and agencies across the state of North Carolina, where stories can gather and people can feel heard,” said Dawn Blagrove, the non-profit’s executive director.
The organization has advocated for law enforcement accountability and reform around the state, supporting North Carolina protesters who demonstrated after the killings of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, and Andrew Brown Jr. by Pasquotank deputies in Elizabeth City.
Earlier this year, after a Black 14-year-old in Fuquay-Varina was handcuffed in his own yard, Emancipate NC joined his family in pushing for police reforms.
Blagrove said people are encouraged to report any experiences that made them feel targeted on the basis of their race, sexual orientation, gender or any other aspect — regardless of whether that incident involved physical harm.
“We want to normalize that any mistreatment by law enforcement, even mistreatment that does not result in physical harm, is still harmful,” she said. “It’s still worthy of being documented, and we want to hear your story.”
Blagrove said the organization will use the data to advocate for law enforcement agencies, city councils and county commissioners to intervene when patterns of misconduct arise with specific officers or agencies.
She added that they will also file complaints with state commissions that oversee law enforcement certifications.
“That’s the thing that we really want to be able to focus on,” she said. “What we know is there are bad officers who are on the street. The best way to get them out of the profession completely is to have their certification stripped here in North Carolina.”
‘Transparency and policy’
North Carolina law enforcement agencies, including the Raleigh Police Department, Durham Police Department and the City County Bureau of Identification in Wake County, have processes in place for people to report alleged officer misconduct through their internal affairs units.
Durham Police has a civilian police review board to hear appeals following the outcome of the internal investigations. The Raleigh Police Department reports the outcomes of the citizen complaints from 2011 to 2019 on its website. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department has 15 years of internal affairs annual reports on its website.
But Blagrove said Emancipate NC was spurred to act by what organizers saw as a lack of political will to “hold law enforcement accountable through transparency and policy.”
The organization’s database launched just a week before Senate Bill 300 was signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper. The new law will see the creation of several databases to track information about officers who are disciplined or lose their certification, as well as incidents in which an officer’s use of force results in serious injury or death, The News & Observer reported.
But much of the information collected by these databases will not be publicly accessible — a fact that Blagrove said detracts from their ability to “create real accountability for law enforcement.”
Under the new law, information will be available to state decertification commissions for the first time about officers who have been banned from testifying in court for lying under oath.
While Emancipate NC’s database also won’t be publicly accessible at first, Blagrove said the organization still hopes to provide data to the public in a timely manner.
“Once we start collecting that data, we will not hold it for very long,” she said. “We are not going to keep it from folks.”
The organization is also working with USA Today to feed information into its national police misconduct database, though individuals can opt out of sharing their information with the news site when reporting to Emancipate NC.
Kami Chavis, director of the criminal justice program at Wake Forest Law School, said having additional information about officers can help detect trends among individuals or departments. Chavis, a former prosecutor, has researched and taught about criminal justice and policing for more than 15 years.
“In this country we have long suffered from a lack of reliable information about police misconduct,” she said.
Chavis said those seeking recourse will often go through local avenues, like the law enforcement agency’s complaint process or the local court system.
A database like Emancipate NC’s could help those individuals establish a pattern or practice of misconduct in a specific jurisdiction, or to show an agency was aware of specific issues or conduct from officers, she said.
“What it does is it could show trends, when we think about municipal liability,’ Chavis said. “It could absolutely be helpful.”
While she praised the effort, Chavis added that robust local, state and federal governments databases are also needed.
Chavis said she is glad North Carolina passed legislation to create new officer accountability databases. Still, she voiced concerns over much of that information not being publicly accessible.
“So much of the problem that we’re experiencing between police and citizens today is a lack of transparency,” she said. “If you’re not going to make the data readily accessible to the public, then that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it — but we have to understand that we’re not meeting one of the goals that we should be meeting.”
What happens after you report
For those who have experienced misconduct from law enforcement, Blagrove said it’s important to document the date, time and location of the incident, as well as the names and badge numbers of involved officers and the police department or law enforcement agency.
She said it’s important to remember as many details about the incident as possible.
Blagrove said Emancipate NC will reach out to people who submit their stories to the database, offering them resources and support in navigating the grievance process.
She emphasized that none of their information will be shared or publicly released without their consent.
When asked if Emancipate NC would be vetting reports to confirm details, Blagrove said the organization is “not acting as an arm of the carceral system.”
“We are in the business of trusting and believing the people’s lived experiences,” she said. “So as far as validating, corroborating, that kind of thing — that’s language that I don’t feel comfortable with.
“But what I will say is this,” she added. “We are recording, we are a receptacle for the people’s lived experiences, and if we find that there is something that is actionable, either legally or otherwise, we will assist the person as much as we can in pursuing whatever avenues are available for them to get some kind of restorative justice.”
Though the tool launched in August, Blagrove said people across the state are encouraged to report incidents that occurred before it existed.
“There’s no time limit on the need to have your experience with law enforcement validated, and to have your humanity recognized,” she said. “There’s no statute of limitations on that.”
Blagrove said gathering responses for the database is “a first step” in creating change, and hopes it will eventually help inform legislation, as the information it collects may be more easily accessible than agencies governed by state law.
“Part of collecting this data is getting outside of the system, getting outside of the state mechanisms, and outside of the systems that were built with institutional and systemic racism baked into them,” she said. “(It’s about) giving ourselves and the people of North Carolina their own accountability.”
But Blagrove added they are “in the very infantile stages of this tool.”
Now, she said, the main focus is to help people “feel heard, feel validated and feel like they have some recourse to challenge a system that is so grossly stacked against fairness, equity and transparency.”
Concerns can be submitted to https://emancipatenc.org/report-a-police-encounter.