Annual data from the Lethbridge Police Service shows use of force when responding to dispatch calls remains very low.
According to LPS, officers were able to resolve 99.5 per cent of calls without use of force in 2022. That means just 165 out of a total of 36,779 calls required some type of force.
In comparison, 2021 saw 177 calls require force out of 36,143.
“There was actually a decrease in the use of force from 2021, so we had a 6.8 per cent decrease,” explained Sgt. Rick Semenuik with the LPS training unit.
Police attribute effective training to these low numbers.
“We do focus a lot of training on de-escalation, our verbal interactions with people and just making sure our officers know what they’re dealing with.”
According to Semenuik, use of force does not include instances of cooperative handcuffing or a wrist lock, but does include actions such as deploying canines.
“Anything above that, so any type of take down, any type of strikes,” he explained.
“Any time any type of weapon is displayed, say whether it’s (a taser), a firearm of any sort. Any time it’s displayed or pointed at a subject, a report is used.”
Very few of these instances resulted in anyone getting hurt, and no firearms were discharged in 2022.
The report states 23 occurrences where officers were assaulted by subjects — down from 38 in 2021 — while subjects were injured 41 times. No injury to officer or subject resulted in hospitalization.
Approximately four out of five subjects involved in use of force cases were perceived to be agitated, intoxicated by drugs and/or alcohol, having a mental health condition or being in a state of crisis, and just one per cent were perceived to be in a “normal” state, according to the report.
To respond more effectively to calls involving individuals with mental health concerns, Police and Crisis Teams (PACT) were created in 2017. These teams are a pairing between an officer and a mental health therapist.
“Having a mental health therapist with us is invaluable,” said PACT Cst. Derek Williamson. “It’s somebody that we can lean on for that expert opinion and it helps articulate our cause to try and get somebody into treatment or facilities.”
Semeniuk said, while their use of force data is promising, there will always be an instance where it’s necessary, adding that comparing their use of force statistics to other police services in Canada proved to be unhelpful.
“We used to (compare) but we found other agencies vary so much, whether it’s the size of their city, the size of their department and then just the types of stats they keep,” he explained.
“There’s no national standard of statistics that police agencies keep.”
Moving forward, he said police training will remain focused on officers taking adequate time to deal with the call, and avoiding use of force for everyone’s safety.
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