LAPD shoots blacks, mentally ill disproportionately

Fourteen of the 38 people shot by police in 2015 “had an indication of mental illness”, while half of all people that were shot were carrying a gun, according to the report.

The number of people considered to be mentally ill who were shot by police rose almost 300 percent from the previous year, a rise department officials called “troubling”.

The shootings caused the deaths of 21 people.

“We have a lot to do on this, but I think it’s something that needs to be done”, Chief Charlie Beck, who was referring to training of officers, told reporters following Tuesday’s police commission meeting.

The police commission’s Use of Force report comes after growing concerns over the lack of uniform reporting of officer-involved shootings across the nation.

The LAPD initiated the study in response to mounting public pressure on police departments across the country to rethink how they interact with communities, and reexamine use of force policies. Overall, between 2011 and 2015, LAPD officers fired their weapons at 223 people, killing 97.

“Overall, the use of force is rare”, Danielle Karson reports for our Newscast unit. “But at the same time, each incident is one too many if it can be avoided”.

But LAPD’s numbers from 2015 are much higher – indicating almost a third of people shot at by officers were mentally ill.

But he said commissioners will have to dig into the data to understand why, for example, more people with signs of mental illness are the subject of an officer-involved shooting.

The report also found that some minority suspects were disproportionately struck by police fire.

A racial breakdown of shootings and police interactions revealed significant racial disparities in policing practices. Eight of the 38 people – or 21% – struck by LAPD gunfire in 2015 were black, the report said. In addition, 22 of them were Latino-thus 58 percent of the total in a city where Latinos compose 48 percent of the population. “It’s not surprising that if the LAPD is disproportionately stopping and searching African Americans that they are also disproportionately using force, including deadly force”, he said. Protesters were escorted out of the meeting, and no arrests were made. “We’ve seen this for some time now, in particular for minority group members”.