Ordinance would require gunshot wound reporting
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It is no secret that both nonfatal and fatal shootings are on pace for record levels in Louisville again this year, but not all cases resulting in serious or deadly gunshot wounds are reported to police.
Louisville Metro Councilman Anthony Piagentini, R-19th District, wants to change that, as he believes more comprehensive data could ultimately help city leaders spot patterns and try to intervene before another shooting injures or kills someone.
His proposed legislation, on the agenda for Wednesday’s Public Safety Committee meeting, would require hospitals and clinics to report gunshot wounds as soon as possible to Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness.
Piagentini told The Courier Journal he spoke with Louisville Metro Police leaders earlier this year about concerning patterns in the city, “particularly around gang violence or group violence.”
But not all shootings — both those intentional and accidental — are reported for various reasons, Piagentini said police told him, including because the victims refuse to call LMPD or go to a hospital for treatment.
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“You see different shootings in different areas, and they can tell you something about where the perpetrators are,” Piagentini said. “… You don’t know what you don’t know.”
His ordinance says accurate and timely data “can assist public health interventions and prevent premature deaths to help residents live long and healthy lives.”
“These interventions can help prevent premature deaths from gun violence and the trauma these incidents bring to residents and communities,” the proposal says. “This data can be collected with the assistance of local healthcare professionals attending to gunshot wounds.”
Specifically, the ordinance says every case “of a bullet wound, gunshot wound, powder burn or any other injury arising from or caused by the discharge of a firearm shall be reported immediately, or as soon as possible” to the health department’s Communicable Disease Office.
The physician, nurse or other manager in charge of treating the gunshot injury at a hospital or health care facility would be tasked with the reporting, the proposal says.
The report would provide the following information via a form created and maintained by Metro Public Health’s Communicable Disease Office:
- Name, sex, race and age of the injured person
- Description of the nature, type and extent of the injury
- Name of the health care provider and name of the injured person
- Date and location of the incident
Metro Public Health would maintain the data and be required to share it with LMPD, the ordinance says. The Office for Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods and other departments could also receive the data.
With the victim’s consent, LMPD could receive their contact information to try to learn more about the shooting, the proposal also says.
Piagentini said he has additional meetings planned with LMPD, Metro Public Health and local hospitals and “might have to tighten up the language on sharing demographic information with LMPD.”
“If the victim does not want their name shared, then they will not have their name shared, but other demographic information will be,” he said.
LMPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposal.
As of Aug. 15, LMPD had investigated 125 criminal homicides this year, 118 of which were the result of shootings, according to preliminary department data. The city has also seen over 400 nonfatal shootings this year.
That puts the Derby City on pace to surpass last year’s record 173 murders and 585 nonfatal shootings. Louisville already has seen more children murdered than were killed in all of last year, with the 18th child killed Sunday in a double shooting on Lyons Avenue.
Mayor Greg Fischer’s office has pointed to $4.6 million for violence prevention programs in the new fiscal year budget.
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And in a $5.4 million pitch for some of Louisville’s $388 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds, Metro Public Health’s Center for Health Equity proposed the purchase of an electronic health records system as well as a countywide reporting initiative to collect information on premature deaths from not just gunshot wounds but also overdoses, suicides, intimate partner violence and sexual assault.
“There’s already a lag time in reporting this data – sometimes we don’t get comprehensive data on deaths until almost two years later,” said Rebecca Hollenbach, executive administrator at the Center for Health Equity.
The $5.4 million request to help implement the reporting initiative and electronic health records system did not get chosen in the first round of ARP money allocation.
But Hollenbach said several initiatives focused on preventing suicide and overdose deaths have been funded in the past few months through ARP funds or other grants, and leaders are in the process of implementing them.
“As LMPHW builds capacity in those interventions, focusing on building a robust process for mandatory reporting of gunshot wounds made the most sense given the work that Office of Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods is doing to increase a public health approach to violence,” Hollenbach said.
“By having the system and reporting in place, we can understand in somewhat real time what is happening with a particular population, so interventions can happen as needed,” Hollenbach added. “…We think it’s an important step in being able to treat violence as a public health issue.”
Other cities have varying requirements for reporting premature deaths and gunshot injuries to either law enforcement or public health agencies, Hollenbach and Piagentini said.
Doing nothing is not an option when it comes to trying to prevent gun violence, Piagentini said.
“I get asked a lot as a legislator about, ‘What are you doing to limit gun violence?’ I’ve pushed for things like better pay and leadership at LMPD. …This is one of those areas that bubbled up to the surface,” he said.
While the COVID-19 pandemic is another crisis that has killed and hospitalized thousands in Louisville and around the state, Piagentini said “we’re going to get through that” eventually thanks to vaccines.
But the gun violence crisis is “way more complicated” and killing more children than the virus, he added.
“Anybody can see we’re in a public health crisis related to murders,” Piagentini said. “Better data (lets us) do a better job of tracking violence.”
Reach Billy Kobin at [email protected].
