Police use of force data shows work to be done on race front, activist says

An activist in London's Black community says she's not surprised to see that for the second straight year, Black and Indigenous people are disproportionately represented as subjects in police use of force reports. 

"The data is not surprising, that use of force is disproportionately affecting Black and Indigenous members of our population," said Alexandra Kane, the lead activist for Black Lives Matter London. "I'm not shocked." 

Kane was responding to stats released this week in the London Police Service's annual report on so-called called use of force incidents. Police are required to submit a use of force report any time they use or draw their firearm in the presence of a member of the public, use any other weapon including a Taser, or any time a police officer uses force against a member of the public that results in an injury. 

The report provides a statistical summary of those incidents for 2021. 

Last year there were 299 use of force reports filed, up from 274 in the previous year.

While the 2016 census reports that Black people represent about three per cent of London's population, the report says 15.2 per cent of the people involved in police incident reports were Black. Members of London's Indigenous community represent just under four per cent of London's total population but were subjects in 15.2 per cent of the use of force reports. 

This is only the second year the perceived race category was included in the statistics. 

The percentage of Black people as subjects in the use of force dropped between 2020 and 2021 from 21.7 per cent to 15.2 per cent. 

Information about each of the 299 incidents is broken down into five categories including: 

• Occurrence type (call for disturbance, warrant etc.)
• Generated by (whether the call came from a member of the public or was police-initiated, because of a warrant, etc).
• Weapon carried by/subject behaviour (whether there was a weapon or behaviour that caused police to respond with force).
• Officer response. 
• Perceived subject race. 

Kane said while the addition of the perceived subject race is helpful, she said including more detailed information in the reports would be better for identifying trends and issues in how police interact with people of colour. 

More detail would be better

For example, she points to the "weapon carried by/subject behaviour" category as an area where she'd like to see more information. The "assaultive" descriptor could cover a lot of different behaviours," said Kane.

"What does that mean? I'd like to know if those 'assaultive' cases are still disproportionate. Kane said in cases where the interaction began with a call to police, it would be helpful to know the perceived race of the person who made that complaint call. 

As the conversation about police interaction continues to evolve, Kane said the numbers show there's more to be done.

"I can't say 'Oh yea, it's getting better, the numbers are going down," she said. "I mean disproportionate is disproportionate. You can clearly see that bias still exists. I think we have to focus on why the numbers consistently state that we are disproportionately affected." 

The report flags a rise in the number of people who interacted with police who were armed with a firearm. 

Those numbers are:

• 2019 (39 incidents).
• 2020 (104 incidents).
• 2021 (113 incidents).

The report said the increased presence of guns in the community was a factor in this increase and in boosting the number of overall use of force reports to a five-year high..

"As this number increases each year, the number of Use of Force Reports submitted will also continue to rise," the report says.

Deputy Chief Stu Betts said the trend toward increased interactions with people with guns is "troubling and highlights the increasing risks officers face daily."