JPD Releases First Quarter Use of Force Report
By: Gretchen Bolander
Updated: June 6, 2012
A new use of force report shows how many incidents were logged by Joplin police in the first quarter. Officers used some level of force 64 times... up from the 46 reports logged the first quarter of 2011. The use of force can be anything from pointing a weapon at a suspect, using a police dog, deploying a taser or physical blows. Police point to the weather as one factor in the increase. There were two significant snowfalls in Joplin last year, reducing the overall number of crimes reported to police.
Joplin Police Lt. Brian Lewis said, "Most use of force is going to occur when you go to arrest someone who doesn't want to be arrested. And a lot of times that has to do with disturbance calls, assaults, things of that nature. Combative shoplifters, intoxicated subjects."
In the first quarter, JPD got more than 19 thousand calls for service and made 2,022 arrests.
