Why is the California Highway Patrol pointing more guns at people?
California Highway Patrol troopers have been using force against more people since the pandemic hit in 2020, even as they’ve been conducting fewer traffic stops overall. This was mostly driven by a rise in the number of people who had guns pointed at them.
The Chronicle analyzed data collected by the state’s Attorney General office on all stops conducted by CHP, one of the state’s largest law enforcement agencies, starting in July 2018 and going through the end of 2022.
From 2019 to 2020, The Chronicle found that the total number of people subject to use of force by the CHP increased by about 70%, going from about 1,040 to nearly 1,750. The CHP then used force against over 2,000 people in 2021 — twice the number it did in 2019, even though the agency made 20% fewer stops overall.
As a result, the CHP’s use-of-force rate tripled from 2019 to 2021, going from four instances of force per 10,000 people to 12 per 10,000.
The Department of Justice only began collecting stop data from the CHP in July 2018, so the agency recorded far fewer stops that year. However, among the stops the agency did conduct, its use-of-force rates were similar to 2019.
For this analysis, The Chronicle used the the Stanford Big Local News definition of force, which included seven different categories of force. The categories indicate whether an officer did one of the following: pointed a firearm at a stopped individual, shot a firearm at them, tased them with an “electronic control” device, hit them with an “impact projectile” such as a rubber bullet, sprayed them with chemical spray, hit them with a baton or sicced a police dog or K-9 on them.