Review of Shooting Incidents in the Department of Justice

E & I Report I-2004-010
September 2004

Purpose

This review evaluated how the ATF, the DEA, the FBI, and the USMS reported, investigated, and reviewed shooting incidents involving Special Agents or Deputy Marshals. We assessed whether the components adhered to the Department's shooting incident review policy, Resolution 13, which requires "appropriate, consistent operational guidelines" to ensure objective, thorough reporting, investigation, and review of shooting incidents involving LEOs. We also assessed whether the components complied with their own internal shooting incident policies.

Scope

We reviewed shooting incidents involving Special Agents or Deputy Marshals that occurred during FY 2000 through FY 2003. We used two criteria to determine which components to include in the review:

• Components subject to Resolution 13 and

• Components that routinely engaged in enforcement activities such as arrests and the execution of search warrants.

The ATF, the DEA, the FBI, and the USMS met these criteria.²⁷ The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is subject to Resolution 13, but because the BOP does not allow its personnel to leave correctional facilities with firearms except in special situations and does not routinely engage in enforcement activities, we did not include the BOP in this report.²⁸

We reviewed all intentional and unintentional firearm discharges with and without injury or death resulting from the application of deadly force during enforcement operations. Not all of the 267 reported shooting incidents that occurred during FY 2000 through FY 2003 were reported, investigated, and reviewed by the components in the same way. The components' policies define deadly force as the use of any force that is likely to cause death or serious physical injury.²⁹ We considered all firearm discharges occurring when a weapon was drawn to be instances of the use of deadly force. Accordingly, we analyzed operational firearm discharges regardless of whether death or injury resulted or whether the discharge was later determined to be intentional or unintentional. To ensure that we reviewed only cases that were comparable, we excluded:

• Incidents that occurred outside of U.S. territory and were therefore subject to the U.S. Department of State's review policies;

• Incidents in which an LEO fired at an animal;

• Incidents unrelated to law enforcement duties that resulted in the criminal conviction of the LEO;

• Unintentional firearms discharges during training exercises or weapons cleaning;

• Unintentional discharges from handling or clearing seized weapons; and

• Incidents involving less-than-lethal ammunition, such as beanbag rounds.

Of the 267 shooting incidents, 114 fit our criteria. Eleven were still under investigation or review when we concluded our fieldwork on May 21, 2004, and were not included in our analysis. Our report, therefore, is based on 103 incidents.

In conducting our analyses, we distinguished between incidents and cases because some incidents involved more than one LEO. For example, in one incident, seven Special Agents discharged their weapons while trying to serve a warrant on an individual who was barricaded in a house and shooting at the Special Agents and local police officers. The ATF, the DEA, and the FBI do not distinguish between incidents and cases, and create one file for each shooting incident even if multiple LEOs discharged their weapons. In contrast, the USMS creates a separate case file for each Deputy Marshal who discharged a firearm during an incident. We use the term "incident" to describe one event, even if more than one LEO discharged a weapon. We use the term "case" to refer to the individual LEO who discharged a weapon. If multiple LEOs fired during the same incident, multiple cases resulted. After reviewing the components' files, we identified 124 cases within the 103 incidents that met our criteria (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Total Shooting Cases in the OIG's Review

Source: OIG analysis of components' shooting incident data.

The 124 cases we reviewed encompassed a variety of enforcement activities in each of the components, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Cases by Type of Activity and Component
Component	Arrests: warrant/surveillance	Stings: buy/bust or other	Peace Officer	Total Cases
ATF	19	1	3	23
DEA	16	19	5	40
FBI	28	6	5	39
USMS	19	0	3	22
TOTAL	82	26	16	124

Source: OIG analysis of components' shooting incident data.

Methodology

Data Collection

Each component provided the number of shooting incidents that occurred during FY 2000 through FY 2003, the number of full-time LEOs, and all shooting investigative and review policies in effect during the period covered by the review. To obtain information on firearm discharges reported by the components, we collected data from the OIG's Investigations Data Management System (IDMS) database and from the CRD.

Interviews

We conducted in-person interviews with shooting incident investigators and Review Board members from all four components. We also interviewed representatives from the CRD and firearms instructors from the ATF, DEA, FBI, and USMS training academies.

Site Visits

We visited the FLETC in Glynco, Georgia, and the DEA and FBI training academies in Quantico, Virginia, to determine how and to what extent components integrate lessons learned from shooting incidents into their training curricula.

Background Research

Our review of background research on the shooting incident review process included:

• Government Accountability Office, Use of Force: ATF Policy, Training and Review Process Are Comparable to DEA's and FBI's. Report number GGD-96-17, March 1996;

• International Association of Chiefs of Police, Model Policy on Use of Force, Effective Date August 2001, Reevaluation Date August 2002;

• International Association of Chiefs of Police, Model Policy on Investigation of Officer Involved Shootings, Effective Date November 1998;

• International Association of Chiefs of Police, Model Policy on Reporting Use of Force, Effective Date February 1997, Reevaluation Date February 1998;

• Newspaper articles reporting shootings incidents involving LEOs; and

• Law Enforcement Executive Forum, New Challenges for Law Enforcement Professional Standards, 2003.

File Review

For each component, we reviewed shooting incident and case files involving a firearm discharge during an enforcement operation, recorded the relevant dates for the steps of the process from reporting through discipline referral, evaluated whether the file contained documentation that the component's shooting investigations policy had been followed, and determined if the actions taken were timely.

To assess timeliness, we compared the time taken by the components to complete each step to the components' regulations. To evaluate the timeliness of reports of shooting incidents to the OIG, we averaged the number of days it took for each component to report the incidents.

We did not reinvestigate any of the incidents we reviewed, and we did not reevaluate the decisions made by any of the Review Boards. However, we did compare and contrast the Review Boards' findings on the use of deadly force and recommendations for discipline.³⁰

27. The portion of the ATF responsible for enforcing federal laws related to firearms, explosives, and arsons was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Justice on January 24, 2003. Prior to this transfer, the ATF was not required to adhere to Resolution 13.

28. The OIG also met these criteria, but did not have any shooting incidents during FY 2000 through FY 2003 and was not included in the review.

29. The components' policies are based on the commentary to the Department's Policy Statement Use of Deadly Force, referred to as Resolution 14, approved by the Attorney General on October 17, 1995. The Department issued a revised deadly force policy on July 1, 2004. The new policy does not include a commentary.

30. The OIG is conducting a series of reviews on the disciplinary processes of the Department's components. The USMS review, Report Number I-2001-011, was completed in September 2001, and the DEA review, Report Number I-2004-002, was completed in January 2004. The Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Disciplinary System (I-2004-010) was completed in September 2004, and reviews of the ATF and the FBI discipline processes are planned.