(CNN) Phoenix police officers must now document every instance in which they point a gun at a person — a decision that the city long considered but now has been made after recent public outcry about aggressive police tactics in Arizona’s capital.
From now on, Phoenix officers must fill out a form when an officer points a gun, and the incident will be reviewed by a supervisor, city officials announced Monday.
“When a gun is pointed at someone, that’s a traumatic event,” Police Chief Jeri Williams said at a news conference. “I think this is a first step in being … that accountable, transparent organization that is willing to share what we do and how we do it.”
The decision comes two months after a tense community meeting where residents vented about a well-publicized incident, in which video showed an officer pull a gun on a family during a shoplifting investigation outside a Phoenix dollar store in May.
City officials haven’t linked Monday’s announcement directly to that incident. Two separate panels already had recommended that the police department record each gun draw, including the National Police Foundation this April.
The NPF made its recommendation after the city asked it to study a 2018 spike in officer-involved shootings in Phoenix (44 were reported that year, compared to a yearly average of 21 from 2009 to 2017).
“Our community has … said that they want our police department to collect more data around the work they are doing in the field,” Mayor Kate Gallego said at Monday’s news conference.
“We know that what you measure is what you focus on.”
Requiring officers to document when they point their guns at people is not unique. Cities with similar requirements include Dallas, Baltimore, Cleveland, New Orleans and Chicago, the foundation says.