In wake of Floyd killing, SJPD report shows drop in use of force
Racial disparities have flattened out, severity of force has lessened, but injuries have risen
SAN JOSE >> In the wake of the death of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, law enforcement leaders across the country have been climbing over each other to denounce it, breaking from their long-standing convention of being silent after abhorrent police killings. San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia helped start that chorus, tweeting Wednesday: “What I saw happen to George Floyd disturbed me. … The act of one, impacts us all.” But Garcia has more than pointed rhetoric. Last week, SJPD posted its latest data study on use of force, highlighted by findings that from 2015 to 2019, San Jose officers have lessened the severity of force they use during combative arrests, and that racial disparities have largely flattened out. “We wanted to get better,” Garcia said. “Everyone expects me to say those things, but it’s the officers who responded by believing in deescalation and putting themselves on the line. That’s how we’re moving the needle.” The force data analysis was conducted by Washington-based Police Strategies LLC, which built SJPD’S online use-of-force dashboard. The latest study found that in 2019, the department brought racial disparities to within a tenth of a deviation of what would be deemed evenhanded deployment of force, when measured against arrests. SJPD officers were 2% less likely to use force on black and Hispanic people compared with their arrest rates, 5% less likely to use force on Asian and other non-white people, and 11% more likely to use force on white arrestees. In 2015, when the department resumed gathering granular data on officers’ force, Hispanic people were 11% more likely to see force used on them compared with their arrest rates, and white people were 18% less