SF police commissioners question racial disparities with use-of-force data
SF police commission questions racial disparities in use of force data
The San Francisco Police Department reported using force against Black people 502 times, compared with 311 times against Hispanic people, 223 against white people and 80 times against Asian people. SFPD categorized 35 incidents as against other racial groups.
SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco police commissioners on Wednesday questioned police officials about the department's use-of-force report for the first six months of this year.
They focused on why there were 502 use-of-force incidents involving Black people, more than any other ethnicity.
The commissioners wanted to know why in a city where Black people make up only 5% of the population, they somehow made up 44% of police use-of-force incidents during the first half of the year.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the comission said this data points to a racial bias issue in the department.
The San Francisco Police Officer's Association pushed back, saying the report is faulty,
The union noted that the data compares uses of force to the city’s residential population instead of to criminal suspects, the Chronicle reported. If the commission looked at the racial makeup of crime suspects and arrested individuals, the uses of force against Black people would not seem so disproportionate, according to the police union.