LOS ANGELES — Officer-involved shootings and use of force increased by 10% and 25%, respectively, in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to a Los Angeles Police Department report released Tuesday.
During Tuesday’s Board of Police Commissioners meeting, Capt. Matthew Plugge, a commanding officer of the Critical Incident Review Division, led a presentation on the 2023 Use of Force Year-End Review.
The report showed that LAPD had 34 officer-involved shootings last year compared to 31 in 2022 and 70 occurrences of use of force compared to 53 in 2022.
Of the 34 officer-involved shootings, 13 of them, or about 38%, involved individuals “experiencing homelessness,” which represents a 12% increase compared to 2022 of such cases, the report showed.
Another 12 of those officer-involved shootings involved individuals “perceived to suffer from a mental illness and/or a mental health crisis.”
In 2023, 13 firearms were utilized by suspects while in other cases 12 edged weapons were used by suspects during officer-involved shootings, according to the report.
Of the 34 officer-involved shootings in 2023, 16 individuals died because they were shot by police, about 47%, 14 individuals sustained non-fatal injuries and four others were uninjured, the report said.
There were five officer-involved shootings involving animals in 2023, which was similarly reported in 2022.
There was three more cases where officers unintentionally discharged their weapons in 2023 compared to seven in 2022.
Plugge noted there was a 400% increase regarding in-custody deaths — there were five in-custody deaths reported in 2023 compared to one in-custody death in 2022. Of the five in-custody deaths, one of them was perceived to “suffer from a mental illness or a mental health crisis.”
In 2023, department personnel conducted two carotid restraint control holds against suspects, which was similarly reported in 2022. The use of this tactic — applied pressure to the sides of a person’s neck to render them unconscious or subdue them — is illegal. The state passed AB 1196 in 2021, prohibiting law enforcement agencies from using the tactic.
Regarding the department’s use of “non-categorical use of force,” officials reported 1,560 cases where such tactics were used compared to 2,213 in 2022, representing a nearly 30% decrease.
Additionally, 34% these cases involved a suspect believed to have been impaired by alcohol or other substances, and another 33% involved individuals “experiencing homelessness,” according to the report.
Non-categorical use of force mostly involves of “less lethal” tactics to subdue a suspect, such the use of a baton, beanbag shotgun, an officer’s bodyweight, strike, kick or punch, Tasers, among other things.
According to Plugge, this data speaks to the “effectiveness of the department’s commitment to de-escalation training and the restraint of officers have shown in instances when force was deemed necessary.”
The five-member board commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the report and hold further discussions at a future meeting. Erroll Southers, president of the commission, was absent from the meeting.
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