Despite efforts by the state to make information about police-involved shootings more transparent and accessible for the public, many of the encounters are hard to track.

An analysis by NJ Spotlight News finds Najee Seabrooks is the latest of eight deaths involving Patterson police since 2019.

That's more than any other municipality in New Jersey and across the state police fired weapons and more than three dozen instances where one or more people died.

Now there may have been more but there's still no single place where the public can find that data.

Our Senior Writer and Digital Projects Editor Colleen O'Dea has been digging into the issue, she joins me now.

Colleen, you note the number of instances where police fired a weapon but really we have no idea despite everything the state did why is that?

It's a good question I think when they created the database they weren't thinking in that respect so if you were to go to the database and look for number of deaths due to police shootings you just can't find that.

Death is not a an injury so there are different kinds of injuries.

Gunshot is something that you can look for in that database but it doesn't distinguish between gunshots aimed at people versus aimed at animals and there were an awful lot aimed at animals in the last uh two and a half years.

I guess that the data is up there.

The other thing that that kind of hampered us is that while the Attorney General's office puts out information every time it does investigate one of these in the form of a press release, the search function on this site um just doesn't let you search beyond 2022 in any easy fashion and of course we tried several times to get the Attorney General's office to answer our questions to give us an exact number and they didn't respond.

Yeah and of course as you found through your data, a disproportionate number of these incidents have happened are happening in Paterson.

So what then can be done with this information with the way it's being disseminated?

You know if you want the legislature to do something um or you know the the governor's office unless that information is readily available it's not something that people can look at.

I mean I do think it's worth noting that there have been six fatal shootings in Paterson there was another one in which a man was uh injured he can't walk because there's still a bullet lodged in his back.

Now the officer in that instance has been charged because the man did not have uh the man was unarmed and um he was fleeing the officer shot him in the back but but you know in the in those other instances um you know.

You've got four of the shootings in Paterson were by the Paterson police, one by Passaic County Sheriff, one by the U.S Marshals.

But it's the third largest city and there were fewer city, fewer shootings in Newark and Jersey City.

I mean I think that's something to note.

Yeah I mean, does it speak to perhaps what advocates have been telling you and others who have been covering this which is that there's just a larger problem with policing or does that problem maybe as the data suggests lay more in certain departments?

The state has this arrive program where now police are being paired with mental health advocates or mental health professionals and that you know by all accounts seems to have been working in many places but it's still only a pilot um.

The mayor of Paterson did tell me that they are partnering with St Joseph's hospital but that hasn't really started yet it's just in the planning phases so I think that they recognize an issue in Paterson um the question is you know how is this all going to shake out.

And we should know that there was another police involved shooting in South Jersey over the weekend in Deptford Township which the Attorney General's office says it will investigate.

Colleen O'Dea for us thank you so much.

Thank you Bri.

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