Law Enforcement – “Use of Force”

Article about LEO and “Use of Force” (opens new window)

A former Unisys colleague Paul Martig shared the above article on FB, and below are my subsequent thoughts upon reading that article:

Interesting and very well written newspaper article about the “use of force” by the LaCrosse PD, and it gives reasons why all “use of force” situations need to be recorded (into a [national?] database – apparently not all PDs have this requirement/philosophy), since the data will then obviously show that the MAJORITY of police/civilian interaction do NOT end up with the officer using any type of force. And, only then, can the local PD determine if their department’s (either as a congregate or individually) occurrences of “use of force” is “typical” or “excessive”. You can only know this by looking at the data and then using statistics by looking at other PDs (and other officers within a dept) for comparison.

Great article. I support Police Officers – they really have a tough job. The majority of them are good officers and do a good job, each and every day.