The statistics are in
With apologies to Mark Twain’s famous statement about the levels of lies (lies, damned lies and statistics), this is a quick review of the Department’s 386-page publication looking at all uses of force in 2019. For those of you not inclined to dig into this mass of information, even though it is loaded with eye-catching charts and diagrams, I thought I would highlight a few of the more interesting findings.
It was presented to the Police Commission on May 19, 2020. There is something in it for everyone. If you are going to start talking about uses of force, I guess you have to begin with talking about the rate of crime, which is usually at the core of uses of force. There were 29,963 violent crimes in 2019 that included 259 murders. That is a one-half percent reduction from 2018; and they say COMPSTAT doesn’t work!
Los Angeles came in third behind Houston and Chicago. LAPD has 10,073 officers who are 49% Hispanic, 30% White, 10% Black, 8% Asian/Pacific Islander and 2% Filipino. And who are 18% female. This is the background that uses of force play against.
Uses of force are bilateral. We give and we receive. We were victims of suspects’ uses of force 758 times in 2019. The good news is that it was a 3% decrease from the previous year. The reduction in officer-involved shootings (OIS) was much greater. There was a 21% decrease from the previous year. This may have been because we took 6,969 guns off the street in 2019, which was a 9% increase. Yes, shootings were down, but non-categorical uses of force were up. There were 2,320 of them. A 9% increase. Taser use was down 3% from the previous year, maybe because they were only effective 53% of the time. Beanbag use was similarly only effective 52% of the time. 40mm effective only 53% of the time. No one yet knows about the effectiveness of the BolaWrap.
As expected, 85% of the non-categorical uses of force (7,503) were done by the police officer rank. However, there were six incidents that are accredited to command staff. It isn’t clear if the victim was a citizen or a police officer. (Just kidding.)
By the way, you are doing a great job. There was only a 2% Administrative Disapproval for tactics and a 0.5%Administrative Disapproval for the use of force itself.
If you want to know when to go on vacation to avoid uses of force, July gets the most occurrences (9%). Saturdays have the most uses of force (15%) and 1600–2000 hours was the worse time period (24%). To avoid getting involved in an OIS is more difficult. You have to stop answering radio calls. Forty-two percent of the OIS originated from radio calls, and 23% originated from field detentions based on officer observations. If you think you are safe staying at home, think again; 12% originated from off-duty incidents. The remaining incidents came from preplanned events, citizen flag-downs and
two ambushes.
April was the worst month for OIS incidents (19%), with Monday being the most active day (27%) and 1800–0600 hours being the most active time period (54%). Hollenbeck had the most (15%), although Southeast had the most shooters (28%). The 26 incidents involved 47 shooters.
They were all male this year: 36% of them had 1–5 years of service, 28% of them had 6–10 years of service, 23% had 11–20 years of service, and the old-timers took the remaining 9%.
Ninety-four percent were of the police officer rank. Two detectives and a sergeant were the outliers. Sixty-two percent of the time, there was one shooter. Nineteen percent of the time, there were two shooters. Fifteen percent of the time, there were three shooters. Once, there were five or more shooters.
Eighty-five percent of the time, the officers used handguns. Nine percent of the time, rifles were used. Six percent of the time, shotguns were used.
An average of 10.1 rounds were fired per incident, a 35% increase over the previous year.
Fifteen percent of the time, suspects were in mental illness crises. Eighty-five percent of the time, they were high on some substance, and 65% of the time they were armed with firearms. Nineteen percent of the time, they had a knife. Four percent had impact weapons. There were no perception-based shootings in 2019.
Twelve of the suspects died (46%). Eight were Hispanic, two were Black, one was White, and one was “other.”
The adjudications for 2019 are not out yet because it takes just short of a year to finish the investigation and present it to the Police Commission, but the 2018 adjudications are in. Forty percent of the incidents were adjudicated as Administrative Disapproval on tactics. Fifteen percent of the uses of force itself were also adjudicated as Administrative Disapproval. Your odds of surviving a categorical use of force sanction-free are much lower than the non-categorical uses of force.
And last but not least, we had 11 unintentional discharges. Unfortunately, that was a 175% increase over 2018. Four occurred off-duty, and six were non-tactical, meaning during weapon inspections or cleaning. Only one was during a tactical situation. Six handguns, three shotguns and two rifles were involved. As would be expected, eight of the 11 were from zero to five years on the job, and of course, 100% of the unintentional discharges will be Administratively Disapproved.
You can obtain your own copy of the 2019 Use of Force Report at http://assets.lapdonline.org/assets/pdf/2019_ uof_review.pdf. Starting at page 346, there is an excellent summary of uses of force from 2017–2019, complete with photos of the suspects’ weapons. It is worth the read.
Uses of force are now in the spotlight. There will be no quarter given by the current media or politicians for mistakes, or even apparent mistakes. Be faultless, or don’t engage until you are sure you will be.
Be legally careful out there.
