Greater Sudbury Police officers file 121 reports of use of force in 2019

It would be a 'wonderful world' if police officers got 100-per-cent compliance from people they are arresting, said the city's top cop. 

That's not the case, though, said Greater Sudbury Police Chief Paul Pedersen, speaking at the Feb. 19 police services board meeting. Sometimes, officers are required to use force to effect an arrest or to deal with other types of situations, like dispatching an injured animal. 

“The emphasis is always on public safety and de-escalation techniques ... to resolve situations with the minimal chance of injuries for everyone involved,” said Pedersen.

Use of force reports are filed when an officer uses physical force on another person that results in injury or a complaint of injury, uses a weapon other than a firearm (baton) on another person, deploys a conducted energy weapon, draws a handgun, points a firearm at a person, discharges a firearm, or releases a police canine, resulting in injury.

In 2019, Greater Sudbury Police officers filed 121 use of force reports from 85 different incidents. The number of incidents is down slightly from 2018, when 88 incidents were reported.

Conversely, the number of reports is up slightly, from 113 in 2018 to 121 in 2019. That's because more officers responded to the same calls, said Pedersen.

That's generally an indication of higher risk calls, said Pedersen. The higher the risk, the more officers are involved.

What's encouraging, he said, is officers had to use force so infrequently — reports of force being used in a little over 100 arrests is a small fraction of the thousands of arrests made each year.

“Two things come into play (during an arrest),” Pedersen said. “First, is the officers' use of tactical communication and de-escalation techniques, and the other is the compliance of the people being arrested. This just shows those de-escalation techniques are being used successfully the majority of the time.” 

A total of 52 reports were submitted in 2019 where officers drew, pointed or discharged their firearms. Firearms were discharged in 10 of those reports, of which all but one were for the dispatching of an injured animal.

That one incident involved firing a gun at an armed subject, who posed an imminent threat to officers and the public, and resulted in serious but non-life-threatening injuries to the person arrested.

Officers used a conductive energy weapon 57 times last year, but only 19 incidents had full deployment (firing the cartridge). 

“Overall usage of the CEW has remained fairly consistent from year to year since the full rollout to frontline officers in 2015,” Pedersen said. 

Empty hand techniques, such as physical escort and control (soft) or physical strikes and joint manipulation (hard) were reported 55 times in 2019, up from 42 reports the year before.

Police canines were used three times as a force option in 2019, up slightly from 2018 when a canine was used once as a force option.

In 2019, officers reported that people they arrested were armed with an edged weapon 17 times (edged weapons can range from a knife to a screwdriver, or anything that can cut or stab), armed with a gun 23 times, or armed with a different weapon (such as syringes, bear mace or broken glass) five times.

Use of force was used 57 times to effect an arrest, while 39 times it was used in self defence. Use of force was used nine times to destroy an animal, eight times to protect the public and once to prevent an escape.