The Los Angeles Police Department released a report on Tuesday touting the decline in police shootings in 2024, although officials acknowledged that the figures this year indicate that the trend reversed significant growth in fatal force incidents.
LAPD officials opened fire on 29 people last year, compared with 34 people in 2023 (the authors of the report insist that this is a sign that the department’s efforts to curb severe use of force are having an impact.
However, in 2025, LAPD officials have exceeded the total number of shootings recorded last year, with police firing at least 31 times in less than nine months.
Teresa Sánchez-Gordon, who announced Tuesday as the new president of the police commission, said she was shocked by the encounter last year showing signs of mental illness, sometimes shooting rather than deploying weapons designed to be incapacitated in the first place.
“Why can’t we increase…using this kind of killing method?” asked Sanchez Gordon.
LAPD chief Jim McDonnell told the committee that using a Taeser and launcher that shoots hard foam projectiles “the most important thing is everyone’s mind.”
But it is often encountered with people in crisis that are so quick and unpredictable that officials have little time to think about other tools, he said. He noted that the vast majority of shootings originated from 911 calls rather than “active policing”, which he said emphasized “the responsive nature of these incidents.”
The timing of Tuesday’s report appears to be inconsistent with the public’s growing anger at the recent shootings, including the pattern of ongoing police killings of people who appear to be in a crisis of certain behavior.
The report also noted that the number of shootings has been increasing last year, in which officials mistakenly believe that someone is armed, is an increasingly common situation and has also attracted the cause of recent attention.
In July, LAPD officials Deadly shooting They said a man was sitting in a utility van east of the city and ignored repeated orders to drop a toy air gun, similar to a real rifle. The deceased’s fiancée said he had dealt with mental health issues in the past.
In recent weeks, the committee Promoted McDonald’s Do more to curb the number of shootings.
Last year, the Southeast, North Hollywood and Port Patrols recorded the biggest drops, while the 77th Street, Foothill, Rampart and Newton departments recorded the biggest drops.
Shoot across races. About 55% of the people shot by officials were Latino, with blacks and whites respectively accounting for 21% of the incident, and the remaining 3% involved Asians.
More than half of the weapons fired are Latino, which roughly matches the department’s racial makeup. One quarter of the officers are white, with Asian officers responsible for 11% of the shootings.
The number of officers injured in the shooting increased from eight to 11 from 2023 to 2024, the report said.
For police critics and social justice advocates, the rise of police shootings has been a regular debate in the speeches at the committee’s weekly meetings.
On Tuesday, prominent civil rights leader Melina Abdullah, who has long criticized the department’s history of excessive force against people of color, accused the commission of failing to take seriousness as police shootings continue to rise.
“I don’t know how this supervisory body oversees and calls for different things,” she said.
Recent reports found that officers fired nearly twice as many shots in 2020. On average, LAPD officers fired more than 10 shots per shot.
The department’s report shows that, in addition to the decline in police shootings last year, the so-called non-category uses – LAPD representatives deploying Taser or Beanbag shotguns or events, or events resulting in severe but inanimate injuries – slightly lowered to 1,451.
The number of people with crime and contact with LAPD in 2024 has declined, a downward trend.
Shootings by people with knives, swords and other marginal weapons also dropped significantly. In recent years, preventing this type of confrontation to become deadly people has been the focus of the department and the committee. In February, LAPD officials face criticism after them Shooting and killing a transgender woman She called 911 to report her kidnapped and held a knife in her room at the Pacoima motel.
Like most crime statistics, experts warn against reading too much about fluctuations throughout the year. But department statistics show that despite recent increases, police shootings were still quite large with their climax in the early 1990s and accounted for only a small percentage of all public encounters each year.
