Pierce Deputies Used Force 5 Times More on Black Residents: Study

TACOMA, WA — A new report has found that Pierce County Sheriff's Department disproportionately used force against Black and Native American residents when compared to their white counterparts.

As The News Tribune first reported, the Use of Force Study was a collaborative effort between Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier's Office, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, Prosecutor’s Office and Public Defender’s Office. The report was recommended by the Law and Justice Public Review Committee, and cataloged use-of-force incidents between 2016 and 2020 to see if deputies were proportionately using force to match county demographics.

As the report notes, it "does not address questions of whether use of force was reasonable or justified in any case, nor the specific cause of incidents," and was only concerned with the type of force used, the reason deputies used force, and the age and race of the person force was used against.

Here are a few key takeaways from the study:

Deputies used force 5.62 times as much against Black or African American residents as they did against white residents.

Similarly, they used force 2.31 as often against Native American or Alaska Native residents compared to white residents. Combined, those additional uses of force against Black and Native residents caused an estimated 92 additional use-of-force incidents each year.

Conversely, Asian or Pacific Islander and Hispanic or Latinx residents were 30 percent less likely to experience use of force than white Pierce County residents.

Deputies were about three times more likely to use force on Black or African American residents than white residents.

Deputies used deadly force against 0.17 out of every 10,000 white residents every year, versus 0.50 out of every 10,000 Black Pierce County residents. Deadly force was never used against residents who identified as Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American or Alaska Native during the five-year span of the study.

Use of force has declined over the past few years

Use of force peaked in 2018, but incidents of non-physical force, non-deadly force, and intermediate force were all lower in 2020 than they had been in 2016.

In the interest of transparency, the county has posted the results of the study and a dashboard to help residents learn more about the use of force by Pierce County Deputies. Researchers also concluded their report with a few recommendations for the county, including recommendations to:

• Compare data against statewide standards to see how Pierce Deputies match up, and hopefully improve equity in policing.
• Use body camera footage to create greater context for the use of force and fuller understanding of the issue.
• Analyze the relationship that use of force has on the rest of the criminal justice system.

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