Phoenix Police Spokesman Misleads the Public About Phoenix Officer Involved Shootings

When a police officer uses lethal force in Phoenix, the Phoenix Police Department's spokesman Sergeant Trent Crump is the person in charge of giving information to the media. Sergeant Crump was asked about a study commissioned by Phoenix PD, performed by Arizona State University researchers and released in October 2015.  In the statement he gave to the media, Sergeant Crump claimed that Phoenix was "one of the safest major metropolitan cities in the United States when it comes to officer-involved shootings."  Crump cited the number of police shootings in 2014 and compared it with numbers of other (larger) cities: "Los Angeles had 30, ... Chicago had 45, Houston had 35, Philly had 29, Phoenix Police had 21."


But it's not that clear that Phoenix is one of the safest cities for avoiding officer-involved shootings.   Though Phoenix had fewer officer involved shootings than every other city on this list, their shootings were deadlier than other cities.  Los Angeles and Phoenix were the only two cities where greater than 50% of OIS's ended up in the death of the target. Though Phoenix police officers shot at only 21 people in 2014, 16 people ended up dead due to a Phoenix police officer's use of force, including 13 people who were shot and killed.



It gets even worse for Phoenix when population is factored in. Phoenix goes from first to a distant second in terms of rate of OIS's per million residents. Phoenix police officers killed people at a rate much higher than officers in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston or Philadelphia.



Among the 55 largest cities in the United States, Phoenix PD was seventh in terms of the rate of lethal force events per million residents. (The chart below uses 2013 population estimates.)



It could just be a fluke that Phoenix police were so deadly in 2014. After all, only four officer involved shootings resulted in fatalities in the first half of 2015.

Data from lethaldb.silk.co

But there's reason to believe that the Phoenix police is actually one of the deadliest departments in the United States.  The Arizona State University found that 64 people had died in the six-year period that it covered, 2009-2014. This would be a rate of 6.9 people killed per million per year. In 2014, this would have placed Phoenix 15th on the list of 55 largest cities by population. This would still rank above Chicago (19th), Houston (25th), Los Angeles (27th) and Philadelphia (41st).