Chief Says Pasadena Police Used Force in Less Than 1% of 7,481 Arrests Last Year

Pasadena police officers used force in only 36 — or 0.48 percent — of 7,481 arrests made in 2015, Police Chief Phillip L. Sanchez said Sunday.

Sanchez commented on this statistic after his department’s release of its annual Discipline Overview and Use of Force report to the Pasadena City Council’s Public Safety Committee last February 16. The report is now posted on Pasadena Now’s servers; to read it, click here.

“Of the 36 incidents involving resistance, nine officers used categorical force twice,” Sanchez said in a statement. “The remaining 25 officers each accounted for one force incident.”

He said officers “were deliberately assaulted about 10 times during the first half of the evaluation period, January to June 2015.”

Sanchez also reported the Police Department received 24 citizen complaints alleging officer misconduct, on or off-duty. The department initiated an additional four complaints for policy or procedure violations.

Police employees were also involved in 26 on-duty traffic collisions, Sanchez said. These and the other officer-involved incidents, a total of 54, were either investigated or are still being investigated by the department’s Internal Affairs Section.

“Eighteen of the cases were classified as ‘sustained,’ meaning the officer or employee was determined culpable for his or her actions resulting in disciplinary action or training,” Sanchez said.

The department also received approximately 20 positive remarks commending the officers or employees for their performance on duty, Sanchez said. He explained the department began tracking positive remarks only recently, which he said accounts for the lower number of recorded commendations.