LAS VEGAS (KLAS)— The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department released its 5-year use-of-force report from 2017 through 2021.
The numbers show instances of deadly force were down, particularly from 2020 to 2021, when the department saw a 47% decrease. The use of deadly force via officer-involved shootings has been slowly decreasing since 2017, with an uptick in 2020, before sharply decreasing in 2021.
While deadly use of force is down on average, non-deadly use of force instances saw an increase over the 5-year span. The sharpest reported increase in cases came from 2017 (774 total incidents) to 2018 (867 total incidents). The lowest increase is from 2020 to 2021. But compared to 2017 a 22% increase was reported.
The use of non-lethal force falls under de-escalation techniques, albeit at the higher end. Part of Metro’s definition of de-escalation includes “the timely and appropriate use of a lower force option to mitigate a later need to use greater force.”
A Use of Force Report is required by each officer who uses reportable force in an incident.
According to reports, the body-worn camera activation rate was the same in both 2020 and 2021 at 93%.
