London, Ont. police statistics show use of force down in 2022

Instances of use of force by London, Ont. police dropped markedly in 2022, according to recently published statistics.

Out of the 95,002 calls for service in 2022, police filed 246 use-of-force reports. That is down from 299 the previous year, a 17.7 per cent decrease.

Officers are required to file a report anytime they draw, point, or fire their guns, taser or any other weapon or use physical force against someone who requires medical attention.

Over the last five years, 2021 was a high point for use-of-force reports. Deputy chief of police Trish McIntyre offered multiple reasons for the drop in use of force reports to the police services board on Thursday.

“I think we’ve done great work in training, great work in de-escalation, great work in expanding how we communicate,” said McIntyre.

The most repeated reason for a report was an officer pointing their gun (105), followed by drawing their taser (85), using soft physical control (78) and drawing their handgun (76).

Officers discharged a gun 27 times, with all instances to put an animal down. The report also notes a Taser was fired 18 times.

While the number of use-of-force reports was down in 2022, weapons calls as the reason for police responding to an incident was up. There were 110 incidents responded to by police involving a weapon, the highest mark of the last five years.

“Up 22 per cent, that’s significant,” said McIntyre.

Since 2020, police have been required to track the perceived race of the suspects the police have used force against.

According to the report, White suspects accounted for 147 cases, followed by Black at 44 and Indigenous at 22. The remainder of the cases involved Middle Eastern, Latino, East/Southeast Asian and South Asian suspects.

The report notes that while Black people make up only 4.2 per cent of London residents according to 2021 census data, they accounted for 20.1 per cent of suspects. Likewise, Indigenous peoples accounted for 10 per cent of incidents but are less than 4 per cent of London’s population.

The report says no conclusions can be drawn from the data alone, with McIntyre noting officers are only required to track perceived race for the use-of-force reports and not from all calls responded to.

“More has to be done, we don’t have a (full) data set,” added McIntyre.