When David Norman shot 19-year-old Jacob Harris on Jan. 11, it wasn’t the first time the Phoenix police officer had killed someone. It was the third time in five years. Norman had already come off a violent year. In 2018, he shot two people — one died and the other survived — in the span of three months. That year, the Phoenix Police Department had 44 police shootings — the highest number of cases for a police department in the nation that year and the highest number in the agency’s history, the Arizona Republic reports.
Most police officers go through their entire careers without killing someone. It’s even rarer for officers to have multiple shootings. An analysis by the Republic of 600 Arizona law-enforcement shootings from 2011 to 2018 showed that 79 police officers shot at people in two or more incidents. Officials consider such multiple shootings almost inevitable in some high-risk assignments. The Phoenix police chief and mayor have not addressed the issue head-on, but they have begun to implement changes they hope will reduce the number of shootings overall. Phoenix City Councilman Carlos Garcia is the co-chair of Mayor Kate Gallego’s ad hoc committee on recommending changes. He said one of his biggest concerns is not knowing an officer’s use-of-force history. “We should not be afraid of transparency,” Garcia said. “It allows the innocent to be proven innocent and identify where there are problems that we can find a solution to.” He said an early intervention system — a computer program that tracks trends — could help reduce the number of shootings an officer is involved in. Garcia said the software could help the Police Department determine how often an officer has shot and under what circumstances.