EPS use-of-force incidents rose five per cent in 2017

Edmonton police used force 2,448 times last year but cases where officers hit, grabbed or stunned people remain relatively rare.

Use of force incidents rose five per cent over the previous year in 2017 according to a recent report to the Edmonton Police Commission — up 25 per cent since 2011, the earliest year for which data was available. The Edmonton Police Service is required to publicly report to the police commission twice a year how often its officers use force.

EPS officers must submit a “control tactics” report whenever they injure someone, use a weapon such as a stun gun or pepper spray, draw or point their firearm, or use any level of force greater than what’s required to handcuff a co-operative person. Of the 2,448 times police used force last year, 1,054 were more serious “category two” cases that resulted in some kind of injury. Overall, less than one per cent of last year’s 261,842 police files involved a use of force.

Tools include guns, pepper spray and Tasers

Officers have a variety of tools at their disposal to control someone who is not co-operating or poses a risk to their safety.

Cases where police held their firearm in a “low ready” position were the most common, with 929 incidents last year.

Hold techniques were second. Police placed someone in a hold 731 times last year compared to 710 cases in 2016. After that were “balance displacement” techniques and takedowns with 697 incidents.

Cases where officers used pepper spray saw the largest relative increase, rising 31 per cent to 42 cases last year from 32 cases in 2016.

Officers also pointed their firearms at a person more often than the year before. There were 187 “firearm pointed” cases last year, up 26 per cent from 2016.

Use of a conducted energy weapon — better known as a Taser — was up slightly, to 522 cases from 496.

There was also a 12 per cent increase in “canine contacts” in which a police dog was used to bring down a suspect — to 96 files from 85.

The police commission report does not include statistics on cases where police kill or injure people, which fall to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) to investigate. ASIRT investigated six cases in which Edmonton police fired their weapons and hit someone last year, resulting in two deaths and four serious injuries.