Records Reviewed: The Bedford Police's Use of Force
Records Reviewed Vol. 3 — July, 2024
A woman placed in handcuffs after her sister reported that she was destroying furniture. Multiple spouses placed in handcuffs after police reported to the scenes of domestic disturbances. Intoxicated driving suspects placed in handcuffs at the scene of the alleged crime; guns drawn, but not fired, after a man locked in a home pointed a BB gun at police.
These accounts are drawn from three years of Bedford Police Department use of force reports, seemingly made public here for the first time. Reviewed in aggregate, these reports offer a window into the 40-officer department’s use of force. And the relative lack of records — less than 80 pages of use of force records created or filed since 2021 — suggest that this force is infrequently used.
“Though the public is led to believe through the media that law enforcement uses force during every tour of duty,” as a recent study noted, “most officers never use or threaten the use of force during an entire calendar year.”
Use of force reports are required by the department’s resistance to response policy, which states that these reports must be submitted “as soon as practicable” after an incident. (The department’s body warn camera policy also requires the capture of audio and video during most interactions with the public.)
This resistance to response policy also notes that “the amount of force used by officers to effect an arrest, prevent an escape, in defense of themselves or others, or for any lawful purpose shall be objectively reasonable,” while also noting that “police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving.”
The town’s state-mandated 2021 police reform and reinvention collaborative plan emphasized de-escalation efforts for “situations involving people in mental health crises, people with special needs, and people experiencing trauma.” Despite these efforts, the records speak to numerous incidents in which officers felt that they should use force when interacting with intoxicated individuals or those in mental health crisis.
In multiple instances described in these records, for example, officers handcuff individuals as EMTs prepare to transport them to hospitals for mental health evaluations. In two other instances, officers are forced to use force and handcuffs to detain individuals that are reported to be schizophrenic.
These reports also reveal that officers often use handcuffs and force when reporting to scenes of domestic disturbances. (In many of these incidents, at least one spouse is reported to be intoxicated.)
Despite these trends, the records suggest that use of firearms is incredibly infrequent: No incident involves the firing of any firearms by police officers. Only one incident describes officers pointing weapons at a man brandishing what was later determined to be a BB gun. 📂
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