Blacks make up only 8 percent of
the population, but 41 percent of the subject in use of force incidents, says
Fairfax County Police report.
Burke, VA
By Skip Wood (Patch Staff) - July
19, 2016 7:18 pm ET
A study released Monday by the
Fairfax County Police Department examining use of force by police shows that of
of 539 such incidents examined in 2015, only one resulted in disciplinary
action -- a verbal warning.
But the study, done in part
because of the fatal shooting of John Greer by police while standing in the
doorway of his home in 2013, also revealed a more eye-opening bit of data.
Namely, that black suspects
accounted for 41 percent of the use-of-force incidents, compared to 52 percent
being white and 4 percent being Hispanic.
Black residents make up just 8
percent of the county's population.
In a statement Tuesday, the
police department noted, "The data sets are intended to engage a
discussion between the great community we serve and the leadership of the
Department as we continue to re-engineer our use of force training, policies,
and culture."
Among other findings:
• Residents
had no weapons in 98 percent of the incidents.
• Police
fired a gun just once in the incidents.
• Physical
contact was the most common type of force.
In the Greer case, former Fairfax
cop Adam Torres was sentenced in June to a year in jail after pleading guilty
to involuntary manslaughter.
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