Edmonton police stats show increase in use of force
By
Karen Unland
Members of the Edmonton Police Service used force in the first half of this year 7% more often than they did during the same period last year, continuing an upward trend that dates back to at least 2018.
The semi-annual Control Tactic Report, presented at the Sept. 22 meeting of the Edmonton Police Commission, indicated there were 1,522 occurrences of the use of force from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2022, up from 1,429 during the same period in 2021.
The number of individuals subjected to use of force in the first half of the year has risen steadily year-over-year, from 1,281 in 2018 to 1,660 in 2022, though the number of those people needing medical treatment has been trending downward since 2019, reaching a low of 55 this year.
These figures were released amid an uproar over a video showing an officer shoving a woman to the ground near the Hope Mission on Sept. 15. A bystander's 12-second video of the incident led many to criticize the officer's actions as unnecessarily brutal; a longer video captured by closed-circuit television, which was released at the police commission meeting, confirmed that she had a knife, although she did not appear to be "brandishing" it when the officer shoved her.
"What the video shows to me — this 12-second video and the longer two-minute video that was released — is a dehumanization of the person that they're supposed to be serving here," said Mack Male on Episode 191 of Speaking Municipally, Taproot's civic affairs podcast. "It was a really violent push to the ground. I'm not sure you can look at that video and draw any other conclusion other than, 'Was that the best way to handle that? Was there no other way to de-escalate the situation?'"