Ferguson Civilian Review Board (FCRB)
Use of Force
One of the responsibilities of the Ferguson Civilian Review Board, per the ordinance, is to “…review… a sampling of other FPD force review board investigations involving the use of force where a complaint was not made, as determined appropriate by the board.” This information is currently supplied to the FCRB by the FPD in the absence of an established Force Review Board.
From March 2017 to December 2020 there were 141 uses of force incidents logged and investigated by the FPD. The types of force used were:
- Physical (hands, feet, etc.) - 70 incidents (50.0%)
- Firearm pointing/drawn - 36 incidents (25.7%)
- Taser - 17 incidents (12.1%)
- Vehicle pursuit - 13 incidents (9.3%)
- Taser pointing/drawn (not deployed) - 8 incidents (5.7%)
- K-9 Bite - 3 incidents (2.1%)
- Pepper Spray/mace - 2 incidents (1.4%)
- Other weapon - 1 incident (0.7%)
- Protest event - 1 incident (0.7%)
*the total adds up to more than 141 since more than one type of force were used during some incidents. In the case of the protest event, multiple uses of force took place during that one incident.
A useful comparison to make about use of force incidents, and to look for trends, is to see how often FPD interactions with the public resulted in the use of force.
Three measures of FPD interactions with the public are calls for service, traffic stops, and arrests. In the chart below the number of use of force incidents reported in 2018, 2019, and 2020 are compared to the volume of calls for service, traffic stops, and arrests that FPD made in those years.
This chart shows that in 2018, 2019, and 2020:
- For every 10,000 calls for service, there were approximately 8 to 12 uses of force.
- For every 1,000 traffic stops, there were approximately 16 to 18 uses of force.
- For every 100 arrests, there were approximately 8 to 12 uses of force.
***Please note: COVID had a large impact on traffic stops, reducing them significantly in 2020. This skewed the data so we are showing it as “0.0” in the chart above.