Law Enforcement - Use Of Force

An estimated 43.8 million people 16 years or older had some contact with the police during 1999, according to the Justice Department. Roughly 422,000 of these contacts (or less than 1%) resulted in police force or threat of force. Force is given a very broad definition by the Department of Justice. It includes pushing a person, firm grips on the arm, the use of chemical agents, the use of a baton or a revolver. Officers are trained to use only the force necessary to diffuse a situation.

Of all contacts with the police, 2% of both blacks and Hispanics reported force or the threat of force. Just under 1% of whites reported force or threat of force. Significantly, 57% of those involved in a police force situation reported that they had argued, disobeyed or resisted, or had been using drugs or alcohol at the time of the encounter.

In the 1960s and 1970s, citizens frequently came into contact with the police during labor, anti-war, and civil rights demonstrations. In these situations, the police did use what would be called excessive force. As the name suggests, this means force in excess of what is appropriate for the situation. But there is no definition of what is "reasonable" or "appropriate" force in a particular situation; an officer must decide on a case-by-case basis, a situation that can potentially lead to charges of police brutality.

Deadly or excessive force is difficult to analyze because of a dearth of statistics on the subject. The government does not collect comprehensive statistics. Police departments are, for obvious reasons, unwilling to release data on the misconduct of officers. Also, to address the issue of excessive force, some critics have argued data must be collected on all use of force.

Anthony Pate and Lorie Fridell conducted a study on the use of force by police in 1994. They used a representative sample of 1,697 law enforcement agencies that covered four population categories (below 10,000; 10,000 to 24,999; 25,000 to 49,999; and 50,000 or more). Their results, included in the government report National Data Collection-Police Use of Force, are shown in the graph above. The most common types of force used were those least likely to result in injury: handcuffs, restraints, or verbal threats. The methods that are more likely to hurt a civilian happen less frequently: chemical agents (Mace, for example), batons, flashlights, or police dogs. Not included in the panel are the most lethal forms: vehicle rammings (at a rate of 1 per 100,000 sworn officers), civilians shot and killed (0.9), or those shot and wounded (0.2).

It's intriguing data and frustrating to analyze: it only offers a single year's examination of officers' behavior. As with many surveys, there is a catch: not all departments require reporting the use of force. (Nearly all require reporting the use of deadly force, however.) Pate and Fridell report that 82% of departments require reporting the use of a baton, 72% require the use of chemical agents, and only 29% require reporting the use of handcuffs. The Bureau of Justice also notes that force data are easy to misrepresent by reason of overlapping terminology: police use of force, excessive use of force and use of excessive force represent three different types of conduct. The definitions become even more problematic because no standard definition of "force" exists.

Again, force is to be used as a last resort. Officers are trained to consider their presence in a situation as a potential deterrent to a crime, claims Lt. Colonel Richard Janke of the Cincinnati police, interviewed for a recent Cincinnati Enquirer article. Their presence can certainly help diffuse a situation. Step two is a verbal warning. Step three is a chemical irritant. Most experts agree that situations are generally resolved at this point. But what happens when they aren't? What about the worst-case scenario?

When police are asked to control public situations, charges of brutality inevitably follow. The 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle found police overwhelmed by groups of people who had come to protest the WTO's policies. In the American Civil Liberty Union's analysis of the event (a report called Out of Control: Seattle's Flawed Response to Protests Against the World Trade Organization) they cite the police's many abuses against peaceful protestors and bystanders, including the use of rubber bullets and tear gas and civil rights violations. Law enforcement out of control? Maybe. But police also observed protestors who were, according to a FAIR report, "at times playing to the television cameras by feigning injury." Activists were also supposedly trained to "fall down and start screaming and yelling whether you hit them or not." A small number in the crowd smashed windows and were responsible for $3 million in property damage. Certainly, many political activists know how to advance their agendas. But is it possible for an undertrained officer, in a threatening situation, to cross into the shadowy region called "excessive force"?

A look at individual police departments offers an interesting view of how individual agencies are handling this issue:

In 2001, a two-year federal investigation concluded that there was a pattern of excessive force in the Washington D.C. police department in the 1990s. An independent monitor will oversee the police force for the next five years. D.C. officers reportedly killed more people per resident in the 1990s than any other large city police force. Fifteen percent of the time force was used by police, it was determined to be excessive. The D.C. police were also found to be misusing police dogs. In analyzing data from 1996 to 1999, investigators found police dogs bit someone 70% of the time they were used (the rate should actually be 10% of the time). The police implemented a number of new programs during the investigation, and their efforts appear to be paying off: the number of people killed by police fell 82% from 1998 to 2000.

The Cincinnati police force faced a federal investigation after a series of excessive force incidents. The city faced a curfew when protestors rioted after a police officer was cleared in the shooting of black teenager Timothy Thomas. According to statistics, Cincinnati officers have more than 1 million contacts with citizens annually. Force complaints resulted from less than 1% of these cases. There had been 48 reported incidents in 2000, down from 54 in 1999 and 77 in 1998. The use of chemical sprays increased during this period, however, from 752 incidents in 1998 to 1,000 in 2000.

A September 2000 analysis of FBI data by the Detroit Free Press placed Detroit as the leader in deadly shootings by police. Detroit averaged 0.92 fatal shooting per resident, compared to 0.39 in New York, 0.56 in Los Angeles, and 0.68 in Houston (cities with larger forces and populations). Lawsuits against cops cost Detroit taxpayers $124 million in judgments from 1987 to 1999. New policies include department cadets getting 26 hours of training on when and how to use deadly force, up from the current 16 hours. Officer Eugene Brown grabbed headlines when he sued the Detroit Police department in 2001. He claimed lost wages and emotional duress when the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners reopened an investigation into his history of police shootings. Brown had killed three people and wounded a forth in nine separate shooting incidents since joining the force in 1993. He has been involved in more shootings than any other officer.

The New York Police Department is the largest in the country. The mostly white force has had a deeply troubled relationship with segments of the city's population. In the 1970s, there were reports of some officers regularly abusing their power — using their nightsticks on citizens with little or no provocation, for example. In the 1990s, Mayor Giuliani adopted a policy of "zero tolerance" to quality of life crimes (public drinking, vagrancy, etc.) saying that such crimes led to the more violent variety. The efforts paid off, to be sure; homicides fell 50% from 1990 to 1996. Businesses began to return to Times Square, and people felt safe walking the streets. But some have argued that zero tolerance policing was simply too aggressive. According to Charles Williams, 80 people died in confrontations with police in Mayor Giuliani's first term. The city paid $100 million to settle police misconduct complaints.

In 2001, there were 4,260 complaints filed against officers with the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, a 4% increase over complaints in 2000. (An interesting fact considering the events of 2001.) Complaints include force, abuse of authority, dis-courtesy, and offensive language. The complaints are down 11% from 1997 and 1999 however. Half of the filers are African Americans. The NYPD has made an effort to better integrate its force. Police Commissioner Safir has acknowledged that excessive force dipped 23% since he raised the age and educational requirements of new officers.

Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Data Collection on Police Use of Force, April 1996; "Force or Threatened Force Used in Less than 1% of All Police-Public Interactions." available online from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov; Andersen, Peggy. "Seattle Police Admit They Weren't Ready for WTO Violence." Seattle Post Intelligencier, April 4, 2000; "Pre-Convention Coverage Whitewashes Police Violence, Distorts Activists Agenda." Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting release available online at http://www.fair.org; David A. Fahrenthold. "U.S. Faults D.C. Police Use of Force in the 90s." Washington Post, June 14, 2001, p. B1; Charles Williams. "A Brief Look at the Historical Routs of Racism Towards Blacks." available online from http://kalumumagazine.com/police_brutality.htm; New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board Status Report, January-December 2001, available online at http://nyc.gov/html/ccrb/home.html; "A Bruised Thin Blue Line." U.S. News & World Report, March 29, 1999, p. 35; Jane Prendergast. "Police Use of Force Less than in Past." Cincinnati Enquirer, January 7, 2001; Ashenfelter, David and Joe Swickard. "Detroit Cops are Deadliest in the U.S." Detroit Free Press, May 15, 2000; "Detroit Cop Charged." Available online from http://www.abcnews.go.com.