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2018 Annual Report

Statistical Review of NOPD's Use of Force

SECTION IV: FORCE BY OUTCOME

Force by Type and Effectiveness

FIGURE 15: UOF EFFECTIVENESS BY TYPE

OIPM and NOPD have discussed that NOPD has no consistent internal definition for the terms “effective”, “not effective”, and “limited effectiveness”. The service provider that provides NOPD’s use of force tracking software suggested the following definitions:

  • Effective: The force used resulted in stopping the threat or action so no further force was necessary.
  • Not Effective: The force used did not end the threat, and additional force options had to be utilized to end the threat, or the suspect/combatant escaped.
  • Limited Effectiveness: The force used initially resulted in compliance, but the suspect/combatant overcame the force, created an additional threat which resulted in additional force or he escaped.

Based on comments received from NOPD, it is unlikely that these definitions are known and used by the entire police force.

Analysis
  • NOPD self-determined effectiveness and its guidelines remain unclear.
  • Most UOF is determined effective by NOPD.
  • For two years in a row, baton (non-strike), L1-other, and L2-other were deemed 100% effective.
  • In 2018, just as in 2017, L2-taser was determined to be one of the least effective UOF types.
  • Taser deployments were the only categories that had any force that was classified as “limited effectiveness”.
Recommendation

In 2017 OIPM recommended that NOPD include the definitions for effective, not effective and limited effectiveness in the NOPD Operations Manual. This way members of the police department have a common understanding of these terms. One thought was to put these definitions in Blue Team in addition to the NOPD Operations Manual.

In 2017 NOPD agreed to explore how they could best implement this recommendation. However, this recommendation was not implemented.

NOPD Response to the Recommendation

Prior to the issuance of this report, OIPM met with the Commander of the Professional Standards & Accountability Bureau of NOPD. The Commander has agreed to work with OIPM in 2019 to figure out the best way to address this issue. OIPM looks forward to reporting in 2019 on how this recommendation was implemented.

NOPD's Determination of Unauthorized Force

  • In previous years, OIPM reported dispositions at the UOF level. Doing so does not accurately represent NOPD data which only captures dispositions at the incident (FTN) level. In this report and future reports, force dispositions will be reported by FTN.
  • There were 7 unjustified UOF in 2018.
  • The number of unjustified UOF has increased from 1, to 6, to 7 (2016-2018).
  • A study on complaints stemming from a use of force by the National Institute of Justice predicts 6.5 unjustified use of force for a department the size of NOPD.
  • NOPD determined that force is “not justified” in 1.4% of force incidents in 2018.
FIGURE 15: NOPD's Disposition of Use of Force

Officer Injuries

FIGURE 16: UOF LEADING TO OFFICER INJURY

NOPD police officers face a real risk of injury and death. This is critical to understanding the context in which officers make decisions to use force. But risk of injury is not unique to officers. Individuals who are the subjects of police force also face a risk of injury. See “UOF leading to individual injury” for reference to how UOF injury risk applies to individuals who are subjected to NOPD use of force.

  • Officers were injured by UOF 16% of the time.
  • Officer injures increased by 2.4% since 2017.

Individual Injury

FIGURE 17: UOF LEADING TO INDIVIDUAL INJURY
  • Risk of injury is not unique to officers. Individuals who are the subjects of police force also face a risk of injury.
  • Individuals were injured by UOF 19.5% of the time.
  • Individuals with injuries were down 2.8% from 2017.
  • The percentage of individual injuries related to UOF appears lower than in some other municipalities, for instance District of Columbia Police Department with 55%.