Lethbridge police have released their yearly officer response report for 2019, and it shows reported incidents involving officers using force has increased.
The report, presented at Wednesday’s police commission meeting, indicates that calls for service went up by 3.8 per cent in 2019 compared to the previous year.
143 incidents with a use of force were reported by officers in 2019 — an 8 per cent increase from the 131 incidents reported in 2018.
Police said uses of force range from tactical communication, strategic vehicle blocking and performing holding techniques to using K9 police dogs and displaying or discharging a weapon.
The report also compares Lethbridge to other Canadian police services: Winnipeg, Cornwall, Brantford and Camrose.
Lethbridge had the highest ratio for reported use of force at 0.4 per cent, with the next highest incident rate occurring in Brantford, Ont., at 0.38 per cent.
However, LPS officials say the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Staff Sgt. Christy Woods said several factors must be taken into consideration reading the report.
“I can’t speak to 100 per cent that it’s an apples to apples comparison,” Woods said.
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“All of them are actually quite low when you look at it. It’s under one per cent of our calls for service result in a use of force report — that’s consistent with all four agencies.”
Woods added that the eight per cent rise in use of force reports is reasonably proportionate with the 3.8 per cent rise in calls for service.
Newly-introduced Community Peace Officers are also included in the report as being involved with eight ‘use of force’ incidents.
Woods says it’s unclear how CPO’s will impact future reports as they only completed training last July, and were typically accompanied by fully trained officers throughout 2019.
“We really only have two months of reporting where they’ve been on their own,” Woods explained. “So I think next year at the end of the year would be a better time to evaluate if there are any concerns, or if it’s lower or higher compared to the police officer responses.”
The report concludes by noting that more than 99 per cent of calls for service were solved with no police-reported uses of force.
The Lethbridge Police Service is one of only two police forces in Alberta accredited through CALEA, which conducts these reviews yearly.
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