![]() ![]() They argue that the agency’s shooting count is low considering that it captures about 90,000 people a year, according to five years of federal data. “The U.S Marshals have one of the most dangerous jobs in law enforcement.”įugitives are likely to carry guns and resist arrest, current and former marshals said. “Given the nature of the criminals we pursue, and the specificity of our mission, there is a higher chance for violence than experienced by the ‘normal cop on the beat,’” said Nikki Credic-Barrett, an agency spokeswoman. The marshals say they do vital work in dangerous circumstances. Local district attorneys don’t have the legal power to prosecute federal agents, including police officers serving as task force members the Justice Department can shield them from litigation. Task force members weren’t prosecuted either during the period we examined, according to the Justice Department. No marshal has ever been prosecuted after a shooting, the agency says. Marshals and task force members are even harder to hold accountable than average cops if something goes wrong. He said his department pulled out of a Marshals Service task force last year because of concerns about risky tactics and the lack of accountability. “They are still policing like the way people policed in the 1990s-and we have moved so far beyond that,” said Kevin Hall, assistant chief of police in Tucson. Though body cameras have become routine in major police departments, marshals do not wear them. And marshals are allowed to fire into cars. Marshals are not required to try to de-escalate situations or exhaust other remedies before using lethal force. One reason for the high level of violence: The Marshals Service’s rules are looser than those of many major police departments. Both departments employ roughly 6,000 officers, about the same number who serve in the Marshals Service and on its task forces. ![]() ![]() Philadelphia officers shot an average of nine people a year, killing three. By comparison, Houston police reported shooting an average of 19 people a year, killing eight. On average, from 2015 to late 2020, they shot 31 people a year, killing 22 of them. In addition, seven committed suicide after being shot. We found that at least 177 people were shot by a marshal, task force member or local cop helping in a marshals arrest 124 people, mostly suspects and a handful of bystanders, died from their injuries. So our reporters used news articles, court documents and police records to compile data on shootings involving the Marshals Service and its task forces from Januto September 10, 2020. The Justice Department has refused to release the kind of information about marshals-involved shootings that major police departments make public. Though many police departments have come under public scrutiny for shootings, marshals and their task forces have not-even though they are more likely to use their guns. About two-thirds of the agency’s arrests since 2014 were of people wanted on local warrants, not federal ones, according to our analysis of federal data. In cities and towns across the country, the Marshals Service has set up task forces largely staffed by local law enforcement officers who get deputized as federal agents. In recent years, however, marshals have been acting like local police-only with more violence and less accountability, according to an investigation by The Marshall Project and the USA TODAY Network. Tommy Lee Jones amplified that image, playing a heroic marshal in two Hollywood action films, “The Fugitive” and “U.S. The marshals describe their job as hunting down the most dangerous criminals in the country. Marshals Service, an arm of the federal Justice Department. During most of the years in question, he was assigned to task forces run by the U.S. His record of five shooting incidents would raise alarms in many police departments studies have found that only a quarter of officers reported ever firing their weapons, and just 5 percent of those who did were involved in more than one shooting.īut Pezzelle, who declined to comment, wasn’t just a regular cop with the police department in Mesa, Arizona. This story was published in partnership with The Arizona Republic and USA Today Network. ![]()
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