Police use of firearms declines

Report shows uneven drop from 2009-’16

Milwaukee police officers used their service weapons against civilians seven times in 2016, a decrease from 2009 when there were 14 such incidents, according to a report presented to the city's Fire and Police Commission.

However, the decline has been uneven, with an eight-year mean of 11.4 incidents, according to the report prepared and presented to the commission last week by Steven G. Brandl, a criminal justice professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Of the seven incidents in 2016, three involved fatal injuries, two involved nonfatal injuries and two resulted in no gunshot injuries, wherein a person was shot at but not struck, according to the report.

One of the fatalities was that of Sylville Smith, 23, by former Milwaukee police officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who is charged with homicide in connection with Smith's death.

The Aug. 13 shooting sparked two nights of violent unrest in Milwaukee's Sherman Park neighborhood.

Supervisory police officers are required to complete a use of force report when a department member:

Discharges a firearm; uses a baton in the line of duty; discharges an irritant, chemical or inflammatory agent; or deploys an Electronic Control Device (Taser).

When a department canine bites a person or when forcible blood draws require force to obtain a sample.

When a person claims injury or is injured as a result of police action.

When an officer uses bodily force that involves striking or forcing a person to the ground.

When an officer uses any type of force in which a person is injured or claims injury, whether or not the injury is immediately visible.

Among the other findings in the report:

In six of the seven incidents involving police shooting a person, the person shot at was armed, five with a gun, one with a knife.

Six incidents involved on-duty officers, while the other involved an off-duty officer and an in-progress robbery of a store.

There were 654 use of force incidents in total in 2016, a decrease of 4.1% from 2015 and a decrease of 26.9% from 2013.

Before 2013, incidents that involved “bodily force only” without injury or complaint of injury from the subject were not required to be documented as they are now, according to the report.