Metro officers’ use of force incidents at 5-year high in 2023

The Metropolitan Police Department recorded a new five-year high in 2023 for the number of uses of force by Metro officers, according to the department’s annual statistical report released Thursday.

There were 947 non-deadly use-of-force events last year out of nearly 1.5 million total events recorded, according to the report. This figure is up from 905 events in 2022, the five-year low.

In addition to these non-deadly events, Metro reported 10 shootings by officers, half of which were fatal.

All of the shootings that passed through Metro’s critical incident review process last year received approval by Metro administration, which means that the administration believed that “objectively reasonable force was used under the circumstances.”

Metro began tracking use-of-force incidents in 2012 amid an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into a series of lethal shootings by Metro the year before.

This year, out of all calls for service and events initiated by officers, .06 percent led to the use of force by an officer.

Less than .001 percent led to a shooting by an officer. All victims in the shootings were armed, and Metro said in the report that there has been “an increase in subjects being armed with a knife/sharp incident” in 2023.

This year was the first in 5 years that a subject of a shooting by an officer was female, the report said. There were 2 female subjects shot.

Of the people shot by an officer in 2023, four were Hispanic, four were white and two were Black.

Force allegations up

The report also paints a picture of accountability procedures following a use-of-force event. Metro received 230 allegations related to use-of-force in 2023, a nearly 30 percent increase from the year before.

Of these allegations, 21 were sustained, meaning “the investigation established that misconduct occurred,” the report reads. The report said there were eight instances where an officer was disciplined because of a non-deadly use of force, in the form of either a written reprimand or suspension.

Contact Estelle Atkinson at eatkinson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @estelleatkinsonreports on Instagram and @estellelilym on X.