The public discussion of the Tulsa Police Department’s use-of-force numbers has been going strong for more than a year. It began with the release of the city’s 2018 Equality Indicators report, and gained more traction when the mayor proposed creating an Office of the Independent Monitor.
The police department, it turns out, had been thinking about the issue well before the April 2018 release of the Equality Indicators Report. And had acted on it, agreeing to be part of a use-of-force study initiated through the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the University of Cincinnati Center for Police Research and Policy.
The results will be presented to the City Council on Wednesday.
“I think it’s important to note we started this before those (Equality Indicators) conversations were ever taking place,” Deputy Chief Jonathan Brooks said.
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The study will provide an “independent, unbiased and in-depth” analysis of the police department’s use-of-force numbers, Brooks said, as well as a review of the department’s training and procedures as they relate to use of force.
As of Friday, the city had not received the results. But Brooks knows what he plans to do with them once they arrive.
“What we hope to gain from that is to have the knowledge and insight to be able to make policy changes, changes to our training, or changes to our procedures that the officers do out there on the street,” he said.
The study does not focus exclusively on use-of-force incidents. It examines something equally important, according to Brooks, and that is instances when force is not used by police officers.
Thus, the study is entitled, “A Multi-Method Investigation of Officer Decision-Making and Force Used or Avoided in Arrest Situations.”
“We are looking at opportunities to set best practices that (provide) the best results for the citizens we serve and keeping them safer, and keeping the officers safer at the same time,” Brooks said.
TPD has worked with the University of Cincinnati before to dig deep into its policies and practices. The university conducted a public safety manpower study for the city that led to $272 million in Vision Tulsa funds being dedicated to hire 160 officers, 65 firefighters and 16 personnel in the 911 center.
“We are just constantly working with them to provide us with research and academic expertise,” Brooks said.
The study, which comes at no cost to the city, was led by researchers from the University of Texas-San Antonio department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
Mayor G.T. Bynum said the police department’s commitment to go through the use-of-force study is important.
“I think it is in keeping with the kind of model I’m pleased to see us taking when it comes to the department, where we do utilize the help of outside experts to look at the work that we do and help us identify how we’re doing and where we can improve,” Bynum said.
The 2018 Equality Indicators Report states that blacks are five times more likely than Hispanics and twice as likely as whites to experience officer use of force. The 2019 report shows improvement, with blacks three times more likely to experience use of force than either Hispanics/Latinos or whites.
The police department and the police officers’ union have argued that the numbers are skewed because the calculation is based on population rather than arrests.
Brooks has noted previously that use-of-force incidents by Tulsa police are rare. In 2017, the latest year for which numbers are available, police responded to nearly 280,000 calls and used force 274 times — 0.1% of the time, according to Brooks.
Brooks, who has been in the middle of the discussions on TPD use-of-force numbers from the beginning, said the report to be released Wednesday is another example of the department attempting to be the best it can be.
“We are just really trying to push the police department to be on the forefront of policing and be that leader in our industry, so to speak,” he said.
