Keegan Kyle, and Alison Dirr

Post Crescent

Pinning down how often fatal police shootings occur in Wisconsin is harder than you might think.

There is no single definitive source on police shootings in the state.

Only the federal government has historically tracked deaths involving police but its data is now widely considered to be incomplete, including by FBI authorities.

In Wisconsin, a series of high-profile police shootings prompted Gov. Scott Walker to sign new policies into law in 2014 that require external investigations and greater public disclosure of investigative findings if prosecutors decline to press charges against any of the involved officers. But the new policies remain in their infancy.

Since the state mandated investigations into deaths caused by police, state Department of Justice officials have released nine reports on deaths involving police. The cases involved incidents in Ashwaubenon, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, Monroe, Neenah and Watertown. It took state officials at least seven weeks to complete their investigations in most cases, according to the reports. The most recent case involving Neenah police took about five months.

So far many agencies have requested the Department of Justice to perform the required external investigations rather than another local agency.

On Friday, Attorney General Brad Schimel said the officers in the December shooting at Eagle Nation Cycles in Neenah would not be criminally charged in the case. The Department of Justice on Friday released its findingsalong with hours of video from the scene.

Department of Justice officials said no officer has been charged in any of the deaths they have investigated since May 2014. As of Monday, the department had flagged 20 of its cases as officer-involved deaths while another 11 were non-fatal shootings.

Three Department of Justice cases are currently being reviewed by district attorneys. Eight other investigations remain ongoing.

Independent efforts by labor groups and others, such as a Pulitzer-prize winning series by The Washington Post last year, have also brought more details to light about police shootings. Monitoring news reports and other records, the Post identified 11 fatal shootings in Wisconsin last year.

So far this year, The Post has identified seven fatal shootings that involved police in Antigo, East Troy, Eau Claire, Geneva, Lake Hallie, Milwaukee and Wausau. Information compiled by the Wisconsin Professional Police Association also confirms The Post’s figures.

Keegan Kyle and Alison Dirr are reporters for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. They can be reached at kkyle@gannett.com and adirr@gannett.com, or on Twitter @keegankyle and @AlisonDirr