Shows force is not consistently or frequently used
Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke provided an in-depth presentation on the police department’s history on use of force at the most recent Healdsburg City Council meeting on June 15, and data from the presentation reveals there has been no real consistent use of force throughout the department over the last five years, and while some years have seen a higher number of cases where force was used, the last few years show a downward trend in force tactics such as control holds and take downs.
The data also shows that over half of the incidents involved white individuals and over a quarter involved Latinx individuals.
“As you can see there is no real consistency with our use of force, it kind of goes all over the map. We’ve had some years where it was much higher, but for the last few years our use of force incidents have been trending in the downward direction,” Burke said.
The data presented looks at a five year period from 2015 to 2019.
In 2015 there were 12 cases of use of force. 2016 had 16, and 2017 had the highest amount of 20. 2018 had nine uses of force and 2019 had six.
Burke’s presentation also broke down the use of force incidents by the different types of force: take down, control hold, impact weapon, taser and distractive strike.
A take down is when an officer uses their body weight to bring an individual to the ground who is struggling or resisting.
“Depending on the year, a number of uses of force have involved a take downs,” Burke said.
A control hold is a mechanism that uses wrist locks, twist locks and other methods utilizing manipulation of extremities to try to gain compliance. This also includes the carotid hold, also known as the choke hold, a move that blocks the left and right carotid arteries resulting in loss of consciousness.
Burke said while the department has historically not used the carotid hold, and he announced last week that they are eliminating the carotid restraint from the department. He did say that a few years ago the carotid hold was attempted by an officer, however, since the suspect came into compliance the officer did not end up using it.
According to Burke’s data there were seven control hold uses in 2015 and 2016, 12 in 2017, three in 2018 and seven in 2019.
Impact weapons are items like batons or flashlights being used. “The last time we used that was in 2017 and once in 2015. We haven’t used it in the last three years,” Burke said.
In regards to taser use, the department used a taser twice in 2016, three times in 2017, four times in 2018 and once last year.
A distractive strike is a flat palmed push or punch against a suspect used to create distance or counter some type of force being used upon the police officer. Burke said they used it once in 2016 and three times in 2018.
“We haven’t had a complaint from the community about any of the uses of force that you see,” he noted.
In looking at who has been involved in the use of force incidents, 59% involved white individuals, 37% involved Latinx individuals, 3% involved Black individuals and 2% involved Indigenous/Native Americans.
Use of force accountability
If any Healdsburg Police Department officer implements use of force it kicks off an immediate supervisory investigation. The supervisor will use footage from body cams and other evidence to draw conclusions as to whether the use of force was merited. Witnesses are also identified, and both the suspect and the officer involved are interviewed. Photographs are also taken to document whether the suspect or officer sustained any injuries.
The investigation is then reviewed by the lieutenant who makes a recommendation and the case is later reviewed by the chief.
“Immediately following use of force begins the initial supervisory investigation of the use of force,” Burke said.
Burke said from his perspective of being in public safety, “I don’t think there is any greater anxiety for a police officer other than when they are using use of force. There is so much uncertainty in the officer’s mind over what’s going to happen… They don’t know why the person isn’t complying, they don’t know who the person is, what their state of mind is, what they might be armed with, it is just fraught with stress and anxiety for the police officer. It is probably one of the most difficult things that they do.”
Community complaints
If a community member is unsatisfied with an officer or the department they are invited to submit a community complaint. The complaint is then assigned to an uninvolved supervisor for investigation, or assigned to an outside, independent investigation firm for review.
During the investigation interviews are conducted and body cam footage is reviewed, similar to use of force investigation protocol. A written report is then submitted to the police lieutenant for review. The chief then reviews the case and can come to five different conclusions depending on the review.
The conclusions are: Sustained, not sustained, unfounded, exonerated and frivolous. Sustained means the claim was proven to be true and the officer faces discipline for their actions, not sustained means the claim was neither proved or disproven, unfounded means the claim did not occur, exonerated means the claim was found, but that it was justified.
Burke said year to date there have been no complaints filed with the police department. 2019 had two complaints for failure to investigate. 2018 had two complaints of improper practice from the same individual alleging that the department failed to accommodate a hearing disability. 2017 had two complaints, one of improper practice and one of bias. There were four complaints in 2016, one for discourtesy, one for improper practice, one for dishonesty and one for criminal conduct. 2015 saw three complaints, one on failure to investigate, one on preventable collision and one criminal complaint of an off-duty police officer, which was a sustained, termination-level case.
At the end of his presentation, Burke posed the question, ‘Where do we go from here?’
In addition to the proposal to reallocate funds and reorganize the department for the creation of a community equity team, Burke said to enhance community confidence the department will start voluntarily collecting data on traffic stops effective July 1, over an 18-month period before the new state Racial and Identity Profiling Act requires it.
Officers will collect data on date, time and location of stop, the perceived race, gender and age of the person stopped, the reason for the stop and actions taken by their officer. The officer will also make note of their ID number and of their years of experience.
The data will be published by the department in July of 2021. Burke said this data will be helpful because with their current protocol they only collect data on a person if a citation is given, but now, data will be collected on all traffic stops.
In 2019, the Healdsburg department issued 247 total traffic citations, 63.5% of those were issued to white individuals and 34.4% of those were issued to Latinx individuals, according to police department data.
Burke said of community and police relations, “There is no greater anxiety than the notion that your police department may not have the full confidence of the community and of the council.”
Coucilmembers thanked Burke for his report and Councilmember David Hagele said, “Seeing this report this evening really showed the level of willingness to try to pivot to something better.”
Sidebar: History of community complaints against Healdsburg PD
“For 2019 both of the complaints were failure to investigate, a category that we use when the complainant is dissatisfied with how we responded to a particular police matter that they’ve brought to our attention. One of those two is the one that we farmed out to an independent investigator…. That case was not sustained,” Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke said. The second one was a neighbor dispute between two neighbors in our community and related to the handling of noise complaints in the neighborhood. The complainant withdrew the complaint.
Moving back to 2017 the first complaint was the result of a car stop, and the other complaint was a bias case.
“The allegation was that we had a bias investigation into a physical fight between a complainant and an employee inside a local business. There had been a dispute over customer services inside the business, there was a physical fight. The allegation was that the officer should have arrested the other person.” Burke said.
Officers reviewed the video and determined that the complainant was the one who started the physical altercation and that there was no probable cause to arrest the store employee.
2016 had a discourtesy complaint alleging that a dispatcher hung up on someone and the complaint couldn’t be found. There was an improper practice complaint against a parking officer chalking a tire where vandalism was alleged. The other complaint was criminal and resulted in termination of the officer involved. The 2015 failure to investigate complaint was from the same complainant who made the discourtesy complaint and the preventable traffic collision complaint was a claim that the officer backed up their car over some bushes damaging them. The case was sustained. The last one in 2015 was a criminal allegation of an off-duty officer and the case resulted in the termination of that officer.
