January 16: Last week, the US Justice Department released a report on the use of excessive force by the Chicago Police Department (CPD), the third largest force in the United States. The report was initiated in December 2015 following the shooting of Laquan McDonald which was captured on the dash-cam of a CPD patrol car. He was shot 16 times while walking away from a patrol car with a small folded knife.
The Justice Department investigation found “that CPD officers have engaged in a pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, that is unreasonable… This pattern or practice includes shooting at fleeing suspects who presented no immediate threat; shooting at vehicles without justification; using less-lethal force, including Tasers, against people who pose no threat; using force to retaliate against and punish individuals; and, using excessive force against juveniles.”
In addition, the report concluded that “the following practices contribute to the pattern or practice of excessive force: failing to effectively de-escalate situations or to use crisis intervention techniques to reduce the need for force; employing tactics that unnecessarily endanger officers and result in avoidable shootings and other uses of force; and failing to accurately document and meaningfully review officers’ use of force.” All of this got me wondering whether CPD is just a “bad actor”, or whether the issue is more widespread.
As context, in October 2015 the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported that “from 2003 through 2009, BJS obtained reports on 4,813 such deaths through its Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program. About 3 in 5 of these deaths (2,931) were classified as homicides by law enforcement personnel. The remaining 2 in 5 deaths were attributed to other manners, including suicide (11%), intoxication deaths (11%), accidental injury (6%), and natural causes (5%). In three-quarters (75%) of homicides by law enforcement personnel, the underlying offense of arrest was a violent offense.” Shockingly, the report points out that these numbers represent about half the number of incidents (deaths) that were anticipated. The report identifies 689 citizens that were killed by police in 2011 (last year of data), while the Washington Post reports 963 in 2016 – almost 3 people each and every day.
According to a report in the Chicago Guardian, data compiled by the Chicago Tribune indicate that “there were 435 police shootings in Chicago from 2010 through 2015, in which officers killed 92 people and wounded 170. In all, officers fired 2,623 bullets…. “While a few of those incidents captured widespread attention,” the Tribune wrote, “they occurred with such brutal regularity – and with scant information provided by police – that most have escaped public scrutiny.”
I am not a statistician, but it seems that data on killings by police across the US are inconsistent and some sources may compile data based on their particular mandate or ideology so what follows may need to be treated with some caution. mappingpoliceviolence.org concluded that 59 of 60 of the nation’s largest city police departments killed civilians in 2015. The national rate was 3.6 killings per million citizens; Chicago ranked 47th on the list, below the national average at 2.9 killings per million. The top 3 were Bakersfield (13.6) Oklahoma City (12.9) and Oakland (12.1). Disturbingly, in some large cities 100% of victims were African American including St. Louis (9.5), Atlanta (6.6), Kansas City (6.4), Cleveland (5.1) and Baltimore (4.8). So, far from being an isolated example, CPD seems to be typical of US-style policing.
How does Canada compare ? In 2015, the London Guardian compiled a data base tracking police shootings globally. As part of that effort, it reported that Canadian police shoot an average of 25 people per year; California (with a comparable population) had 78 police killings in 2015 alone. We are fortunate that, at least for now, the context for police shootings in Canada is very different. Strict gun control laws and less focus on the “right of the individual to bear arms”, combined with a more multi-cultural society reduce some of the tensions so evident in US policing. But, as we saw with the shooting of Sammy Yatim, Toronto police are not immune to acts of violence. We should not be complacent about how we are policed.
The police are the point at which the institutions of society (the law-makers, the judiciary) interact with citizens. As citizens we entrust the police with the right to act on our behalf to ensure the “peace, order and good government” that we cherish. We surrender certain rights to them with the belief that they will act lawfully and reasonably on our behalf. I am astounded at the rate of shootings in the US, and the attitude of many police services that they “had to shoot” to protect themselves when actual threats may have been minimal or non-existent.
It concerns me that police forces in Canada see US-style policing as “the benchmark” and seek to emulate those practices here. Police are trained to “force compliance” as opposed to seeking to defuse volatile situations. As a result, it appears that more weaponry is often the answer when more open, community-focussed policing might be more appropriate. Rather than Balkanizing society – us against them – now is the time for the police to be more inclusive.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-findings-investigation-chicago-police-department
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/acardp.pdf
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/2015/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries