95.6% Of Cops’ Calls Don’t Involve Violence

Newly released dispatch data show that New Haven police officers respond to a head-spinning diversity of calls every year — and that only a small percentage of those calls involve violent offenses.

Those details are contained in comprehensive police dispatch reports retained by the city’s Public Safety Communications Department, which keeps track through its Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system of which types of calls police respond to.

The New Haven Independent obtained through a Connecticut Freedom of Information Act request two CAD reports documenting by call type and priority every police dispatch between July 2018 and June 2020.

According to the CAD police dispatch reports, which can be downloaded here and here, police responded to 156,379 calls over the past two years.

Those dispatches fell into 131 different types of call.

Public Safety Communications Deputy Director Jeff Patton said that the data in the reports reflect calls that police were dispatched to, and not the manner in which Public Safety Communications received the information. Some of these dispatches originated as 911 calls, some as calls to the police department’s non-emergency phone line 203 – 946-6316. Some, like motor vehicle stops and supplemental beat patrol assignments, were initiated by officers and police administrators themselves.

The reports were requested at a time when local and nationwide uprisings against police brutality and a burgeoning ​“Defund the Police” movement have called into question what role police officers play in promoting public safety. Should police work be redefined as a more limited ​“public safety” function while most calls now funneled to law enforcement go to social workers, mediators, substance abuse counselors, and other non-law enforcement employees? Does sending armed agents of the state with arrest power into non-life-threatening situations potentially escalate them and expose both the cops and the public to unnecessary potential harm?

The reports offer a window into which types of situations local police officers are regularly called on to respond to today.

They also bear out what everyone from Police Chief Otoniel Reyes to state criminal justice expert Mike Lawlor to police accountability and Black Lives Matter activists at the front of the ​“Defund” movement have all argued: that a police officer, as the job currently exists, is tasked with responding to a seemingly infinite range of incidents.

4.4% For Violent Crime

The CAD reports show that less than 4.4 percent of those dispatches — or a total of 6,809 — were for calls about assault, gunfire, robbery, rape, stabbing, murder, or person shot.

Those categories align closely with what the New Haven Police Department identifies as ​“violent crime” in its weekly Compstat reports, and indicate how frequently officers are dispatched to incidents that, according to the CAD data, have been flagged as particularly violent.

And even that may be a bit of an inflation. While the dispatch data have separate categories for assault/fight and assault advanced life support, the Compstat reports flag assault with firearm victims and aggravated assault (NIBRS) as ​“violent crime,” and put so-called simple assault under the banner of ​“other crime.”

A vast majority of police dispatches over the past two years, meanwhile, have been for — well, a lot of very different types of situations.

There were calls that closely aligned with what Compstat reports identify as property crime: residential burglary alarm activation (12,464 / 7.97 percent of all calls), theft (6,040 / 3.86 percent), burglary occurred (1,315 / 0.84 percent), stolen auto (748 / 0.48 percent), and burglary in progress (202 / 0.13 percent).

There were dispatches that fall within what Compstat reports single out as ​“other crime”: criminal mischief / vandalism (3,076 / 1.97 percent), threatening / stalking (1,645 / 1.05 percent), drug / narcotics complaint (1,342 / 0.86 percent), prostitution complaint (104 / 0.07 percent), and weapons complaint (712 / 0.46 percent).

There was a diverse array of motor-vehicle related dispatches, such as motor vehicle accident — no injury (9,416 / 6.02 percent), parking violations (5,478 / 3.50 percent), motor vehicle stop (2,785 / 1.78 percent), and motor vehicle accident — minor injury basic life support (1,996 / 1.28 percent).

There were dispatches related to mental and physical health, such as door check / welfare check (4,282 / 2.74 percent), person down basic life support (3,322 / 2.03 percent), psych/abnormal behavior/suicidal basic life support (3,167 / 2.03 percent), emotionally disturbed (1,905 / 1.22 percent), and intoxicated person (936 / 0.60 percent).

And all of this only scratches the surface of the dozens more types of calls police responded to between July 2018 and June 2020.

Some of the most frequent that have not already been listed above included other/miscellaneous (11,885 / 7.60 percent), breach / disorderly conduct (7,654 / 4.89 percent), domestic dispute (7,339 / 4.69 percent), trespass / unwanted person (5,764 / 3.69 percent), noise complaint (5,397 / 3.45 percent), public hazard (4,612 / 2.95 percent), and harassment (2,575 / 1.65 percent).

Patton told the Independent that ​“other miscellaneous” is a catch-all for calls that require officers be dispatched, but do not fit into one of the other predefined categories. He said the most common of these ​“other” calls are supplemental beat patrols assigned by a NHPD district manager with the goal of providing regular officer presence in specified areas.

Priority 1 Calls

The CAD reports break down the police dispatch data not only by type of call, but also by priority.

Between July 2018 and June 2020, police responded to 38,916 Priority 1 calls, which Public Safety Communications identifies as referring to serious crimes in progress.

Only one of the top 10 most frequent Priority 1 dispatches corresponded to what the Compstat reports identify as violent crime. That was gunfire / shots fired (1,280 / 3.29 percent of all Priority 1 calls over the past two years.)

The other nine most frequent Priority 1 dispatches included burglary alarm activation (12,360 / 32.02 percent), domestic dispute (6,916 / 17.77 percent), psych/abnormal behavior/suicidal basic life support (1,699 / 4.37 percent), breach / disorderly conduct (1,418 / 3.64 percent), overdose (890 / 2.29 percent), box alarm (738 / 1.90 percent), and trespass / unwanted person (700 / 1.80 percent).

“Co-Responders” Needed

“Officers are doing the work in society that others need to do,” Reyes (pictured) said at a recent press briefing about a local police brutality incident. ​“Officers have become everything to everyone, and we need to start thinking about what the role of an officer should be.”

Lawlor — a former co-chair of the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee, a former state undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning, and an associate professor who teaches about criminal justice at the University of New Haven — agreed in a recent interview about that same local excessive force case.

“We put so many responsibilities on front-line police officers,” he said. They’re trained in and expected to respond to cases involving everything from mental illness to substance abuse to forensic sciences to victims’ rights ​“They’re overwhelmed.”

Quinnpiac University Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Kalfani Ture, who teaches and studies policing and served five years as a police officer in Atlanta, told the Independent Friday that both his experience as an academic and his experience on patrol have shown him that ​“law enforcement are often tasked or called to serve in areas that are beyond their scope and their training.”

He said he consistently hears complaints from past colleagues as well as from officers he talks to today about police officers ​“having to do work that is beyond the scope of policing.” This current nationwide rethinking of policing underscores the necessity of training social workers, counselors, and crisis intervention specialists to respond to incidents that society currently leans on ​“warrior-minded” police officers to handle instead, he said.

Trained As Warriors

Ture said that this NHPD police dispatch data underscore a truth that he has long known as both an academic who studies policing and a former police officer himself: that police officers are currently expected to respond to a great diversity of incidents, only a small fraction of which are violent.

This is such a problematic scenario, he said, in large part because ​“police officers are trained as warriors. We were trained as warriors well before this became a buzz term.”

Ture offered a similar analysis Friday to the one he laid out in the New York Times this week when he analyzed an Atlanta police officer’s fatal shooting of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks in the drive-through lane of a Wendy’s. Brooks was intoxicated, had fallen asleep in his car, and had engaged in calm and civil conversation with two officers for over 20 minutes — until an officer tried to handcuff and arrest him, they scuffled, Brooks fled, fired a taser at an officer as he was over 18 feet away from him and running, and was subsequently gunned down and killed. The officer reportedly declared after he had shot and killed Brooks, ​“I got him.”

“When warrior-oriented policing became the dominant paradigm after 9/11, we were taught about how it takes just a fraction of a second for someone to take your life. Therefore you should be proficient in being a killing machine, if circumstances call for it,” Ture said.

He said he and his colleagues in Atlanta would spend a significant amount of time learning defensive tactics, firearms training, and how to forecfully gain compliance from a suspect, and relatively little time on deescalation. He said deescalation was largely treated by police officers with a ​“hug a thug” mentality: that is, that a suspect inherently presents a violent threat to the officers and their surroundings.

He said many officers — in Connecticut as well as all over the country — spend much of their spare time training in mixed martial arts, which only reinforces that warrior mentality.

This militant stance runs in direct contradiction to the types of calls that police officers increasingly respond to, as borne out by the NHPD dispatch data. Those calls are for drug-dependent issues and mental health crises and traffic stops, he said, and only a very small portion require a forceful response.

“Police have to respond to calls for service,” he said, ​“but all too often, when we get there, it’s something less than what we thought it was.”

He said the warrior mentality exacerbates this reality because it encourages officers to look for violent crime where it may not necessarily exist. ​“If you are searching for crime where it may not even exist, you may end up in a situation where you’re not policing, you’re harassing.”

Ture said he is not a police abolitionist. ​“I don’t believe that we are at a point where we will never need law enforcement again.” However, he said, he supports calls for redirecting funds currently allocated towards police departments to social services that get at the root causes of crime.

He said he also supports the training of social workers, crisis counselors, crisis intervention experts, and even local clergy to respond to some of what is now considered criminal incidents. He said that solution could save money, and lives, in a broader effort to reform policing.

“If you paid a social worker, teach them how to operate an emergency vehicle, get to a scene using lights and sirens, train them to deal with people in crisis, and have them have an associated intervention team, it costs less. And then there’s not an ensuing altercation and there’s not the collateral damage” caused by overpolicing today.

He said he recognizes that many police officers have entered the profession not to hurt people, but to help them. And he said that policing today takes an incredible toll on the mental health and wellness of officers.

He said he knows Officer Jason Santiago, and has done ridealongs with him. He is ​“a great guy,” Ture said. ​“I’ve never heard a negative story about this guy.” He said he had never heard him use profanity, and had only heard citizens call him by his first name.

After watching and reading about Santiago’s excessive force during an arrest last Christmas, Ture was reminded of how policing as it currently exists wears down police officers as well as communities policed.

“You have these officers that are burning out,” he said. ​“He snapped.”

This why departments need co-responders, he said — to deal not just with suspects, but with officers too. ​“They must be trained to identify stress, and to intervene.”

All Police Dispatches By Call Type, July 2018 to June 2020

Below is an aggregate list of police dispatch calls by call type over the past two years, sorted from high to low by number of calls responded to by police.

Alarm: 12,464
Other Miscellaneous: 11,885
MVA — No Injury: 9,416
Breach / Disorderly Conduct: 7,654
Domestic Dispute: 7,339
Theft: 6,040
Trespass / Unwanted Person: 5,764
Parking Violations: 5,478
Noise Complaint: 5,397
Public Hazard: 4,612
Door Check / Welfare Check: 4,282
Evading — No Injury: 3,900
Assault/Fight: 3,839
Person Down BLS: 3,322
Psych/Ab Behav/Suicidal BLS: 3,167
Criminal Mischief / Vandalism: 3,076
Motor Vehicle Stop: 2,785
Harassment: 2,575
911 Hangup Call: 2,554
Tenant / Neighbor Issues: 2,491
Supplemental Investigation: 2,468
Suspicious Person: 2,443
Fraud / Forgery / False Rpt: 2,381
Warrant / Wanted Person: 2,355
MVA — Minor Injury (TTAB): 1,996
Emotionally Disturbed: 1,905
Assist Other Agency — Police: 1,785
Threatening/Stalking: 1,645
Loitering: 1,514
Prop Retrieval / Prev Breach: 1,489
Lost or Found Property: 1,411
Drug / Narcotics Complaint: 1,342
Suspicious Auto: 1,323
Burglary Occurred: 1,315
Gunfire / Shots Fired: 1,295
Missing Person > 13 YO: 1,288
Animal Complaint: 1,260
Recovered Auto: 1,121
Intoxicated Person (PD): 936
Sick Person (Medical Assist): 921
Guarding Prisoner: 904
Overdose: 900
Stolen Auto: 748
Box Alarm: 738
Prisoner Conveyance Requested: 716
Weapons Complaint: 712
Custodial Interference: 679
Robbery: 628
Located Person: 620
Risk of Injury Complaint: 618
MVA — Majory Injury (TTAA): 610
Wires Down: 557
MVA — Minor Injury: 531
Unknown Nature: 516
Assault ALS: 488
Veh Taken w/o Permission: 476
Deceased Person: 395
Sex Offenses: 394
Fireworks: 370
Tampering w/ Motor Vehicle: 358
Illegal Dumping: 329
Auto Fire: 248
Accident Other than MV: 239
Evading — Minor Injury (TTAB): 222
Sexual Assault / Rape: 217
Psych/Ab Behav/Suicidal: 210
Burglary in Progress: 202
Drunk Driver: 190
Person Shot: 183
Missing Child less than 13 YOA: 183
MVA — Major Injury: 157
Notifications: 156
MVA Start Code: 143
Trash Fire: 125
Animal Bite / Sting ALS: 107
Rollover Extrication Required: 106
Prostitution Complaint: 104
Psych/Ab Behav/Suicidal ALS: 102
Stabbing / Knife Injury-Major: 95
Unattended Luggage: 93
Activated Fire Alarm: 83
Evading — Minor Injury: 60
Stabbing / Knife Injury-Minor: 54
Absentee Ballot: 52
Traffic Post / Corner Duty: 49
Evading — Major Injury (TTAA): 49
Stolen Plate: 45
Street Cleaning Detail: 34
In Pursuit: 30
Gambling: 30
MVA Major Injury: 28
Overdose/Poisoning/Ingest ALS: 27
Recovered Plate: 23
Hazardous Materials Incident: 22
Liquor Violation: 19
Abduction: 17
Evading — Major Injury: 15
Elevator Extrication: 15
Suspicious Package: 13
Murder: 10
Bomb Threat: 10
Mutual Aid-Other Jurisdiction: 9
Code 1 Suspicious Package: 8
Welfare Check BLS: 7
Train Derailment/Incident: 6
Detox-Ambulance Needed: 6
Animal Bite/Sting BLS: 6
Reckless Endangerment: 4
Partial Collapse: 4
Cardiac/Resp Arrest/Death: 4
Breathing Problem ALS: 4
Unconscious ALS: 3
Police Escort: 3
Odor or Natural Gas: 3
Civil Unrest Law: 3
Burglar on Premise: 3
Sick Person ALS: 2
Officer Needed Assistance Sig4: 2
Citizen Assist (Yale): 2
Animal Bite Start Code: 2
Traumatic Injuries ALS: 1
Structural Collapse: 1
High Angle Rescue: 1
Fall ALS: 1
Escaped Prisoner: 1
Electrocution BLS: 1
Code 2 Suspicious Behavior: 1
Chest Pain ALS: 1
Brush Fire: 1
AMR Only: 1
Allergic Reaction ALS: 1