THE 2020 USE OF FORCE REPORT IS OUT
Statistics being sometimes useful and sometimes fitting Mark Twain’s remark that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics:. they are out and will be used both for you and against you depending on the speaker’s politics. So, what does the scorecard say about you this year?
Well, the Chief reminds you that there have been some significant changes in use of force policies. You are required to report potential excessive force that you observed to a supervisor where it is clearly beyond what is necessary; the choke hold is now banned; verbal warnings are required prior to using force when feasible; and you must provide emergency medical assistance to the extent of your training and level of
equipment available. Not to mention that you have been trained on de-escalation, crowd control, mental health intervention, and command and control.
According to the Chief, this has resulted in a 44% reduction in overall OIS incidents and a 66% reduction in fatal OIS incidents over the last five years. What?? According to the current media and legislative atmosphere, law enforcement officers are out of control and seeking out minorities to beat and murder! Could they be wrong?
Rarely reported in the media is the minority victimhood of crime. Black citizens comprise 9% of the population but suffer 25% of violent crimes and 38% of homicides. Hispanics are 48% of the population and suffer 46% of violent crimes and 48% of homicides. Whites are 28% of the population and suffer 14% of violent crimes and 7% of homicides. Who needs the most protection? Wouldn’t it be racist to not provide it?
The Los Angeles Times routinely prints negative articles about “over-policing” in stops and arrests based on racial statistics. What rarely makes it into the articles is suspect information. Victims describe the suspects as 42% black for violent crime and 44% black for homicides. Hispanic suspects are described for 39% of violent crime and 23% for homicides. With 82% minority suspects for violent crime and 67% minority suspects for homicides, wouldn’t it seem reasonable that, if officers are trying to protect those most victimized, that enforcement stops would be reflecting those statistics?
LAPD also has a truly diverse department compared to L.A.’s population. Hispanics make up 48% of the population and 50% of the Department. Blacks make up 9% of the population and 10% of the Department; whites make up 28% of the population and 30% of the Department; Asian/Pacific Islanders make up 12% of the population and 8% of the Department. Females on the Department are still at 18%, however.
For what ever reason (COVID, probably), there were 6% fewer calls for service in 2020 and a 15% reduction in public contacts from the previous year. More easily explainable is the 27% reduction in field detentions and a 43% reduction in arrests. Constant criticism has results.
To balance this out, assaults on police officers rose by 36%. There were 27 officer-involved shootings in 2020 out of 1,443,077 documented public contacts. That is 0.001% of the total contacts. Fairly good odds for surviving a stop by LAPD without getting shot at. We could bring that down to zero if we could just teach subjects not to resist: 58% of the subjects had a firearm and 23% had an edged weapon.
The ethnicity of the involved suspects for officer-involved shootings are 3% Asian/Pacific Islander, 39% black, 42% Hispanic, 6% white, 3% other and 6% unknown; 13% were female. In 23% of the incidents, the suspect died from police gunfire. This was a 23%
decrease from the previous year.
Ethnically, there was one black, one Filipino, four Hispanics and one white. Again, facts you will not see in the media.
In terms of origin, 41% of officer-involved shootings originated from radio calls, 30% originated from field detentions and 11% from pre-planned incidents. Of the suspects, 19% were perceived to be mentally ill.
A handgun was used 92% of the time by the officer, followed by 5% for rifles and 3% for shotguns.
Wednesday is the most likely day you will be involved in a shooting, followed by Sunday. The most likely time period is 1800 hours to 0559 hours.
We are saving on ammo, though. We fired 156 rounds this year, compared to 263 rounds last year—a 41% drop.
Non-categorical uses of force dropped 5%, going down to 2,194 incidents for the year, 98% of them come back in-policy. You are improving in being in policy from two years ago.
The 2020 categorical uses of force haven’t been adjudicated yet, but the 2019 results are in. In 2018, 40% of the tactics in uses of force were administratively disapproved. In 2019, only 29% of the tactics were disapproved—still a huge number, but better.
In 2018, 15% of uses of force themselves were administratively disapproved; in 2019,10%. Still too high given that Sacramento has legislation going through the system that would jerk an officer’s POST certificate for an excessive force determination.
The 197-page “Use of Force Year-End Review for 2020” can be found at the Department’s website at lapdonline.org. Chart after chart and table after table lay
out the statistics—transparency for all those who care to do any research. Too bad the mainstream media cannot be persuaded to actually look at the facts.
Be legally careful out there.
