After watching nationwide protests unfold against police brutality, members of Congress did what they have seemed incapable of doing for years: something.
A bill passed by both chambers of Congress and headed to President Barack Obama's desk will require local law enforcement agencies to report every police shooting and other death at their hands. That data will include each victim's age, gender and race as well as details about what happened.
"You can't begin to improve the situation unless you know what the situation is," bill sponsor Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) told the Washington Post. "We will now have the data."
It's not the first time Congress has tried: The same law was actually passed back in 2000, but was allowed to lapse in 2006 and was never reauthorized (despite repeated attempts by Scott). Because it takes years for enough local departments to start submitting all that data, the original law barely yielded anything before it expired.
