Officer Involved Shootings (OIS) Dashboard

OIS Methodology

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) Officer Involved Shooting (OIS) Dataset was developed, expressly, for research purposes. This set was developed to support the Departments commitment to open data and transparency and is specifically formatted to be used as a research flat file. Each of the data elements present in the file were coded following a review of the full OIS Firearms Review Board / Force Review Board (FRB) file.

Updates are posted twice a year (January and July), as cases complete the inquest process (https://kingcounty.gov/services/inquest-program.aspx).

Use of force data also available here: https://data.seattle.gov/Public-Safety/Use-Of-Force/ppi5-g2bj and is updated daily. Data includes Type III - OIS.

These files are generated in the course of investigating the event and contain statements, eyewitness accounts, factual reports from investigators and reports from the crime scene investigation. In addition, each of these files contains the FRB findings and "interrogatives" from the inquest which is ordered, as a matter of course, following each OIS.   Researchers working for the SPD reviewed each one of these files, from 2005 to the present. The resulting dataset (visualized here), was prepared so that each row represents a unique OIS (combination of unique officer and event). Additionally, "keys" are presented to represent the OIS Incident level of analysis (see "OIS Count" and "OIS Incident Count").  

As the Department continues to improve policy and procedure, the way these events are analyzed has changed to provide a more granular view of the data and comply with the revised version of the Use of Force Policy, Title 8 of the Seattle Police Manual. While these data include multiple subjects in a limited number of OIS records, future versions of this data will expand the file to reflect a unique relationship between the officer and the subject of the OIS.  

This file is presented here using the Departments new analytical platform, Tableau. Traditionally, open data has been presented in its raw form but we recognize (1) this may only be accessible to members of the community with the training and expertise to analyze it and (2) does not provide adequate guidance on how to use the variables. In addition to fully documenting each variable in the raw set, this dashboard can be downloaded and visualized using freeware, Tableau Reader.