San Diego law enforcement officials are utilizing pressure extra usually in encounters with residents, at the same time as the town’s crime charge declines, in accordance with information obtained by Occasions of San Diego.
As use-of-force studies improve, the racial hole has widened over the previous three years. SDPD officers are seven instances extra seemingly to make use of pressure on Black residents than on white residents, and almost twice as seemingly to make use of pressure on Hispanic residents as on white folks.
To research tendencies, Occasions of San Diego requested all police use‑of‑pressure studies from 2017 by means of 2025. Throughout that interval, reported use-of-force incidents rose, as did studies of officers going through violent encounters.
As a result of officers usually report a number of kinds of pressure in a single incident — for instance, finishing a bodily takedown after which deploying pepper spray on the identical individual — Occasions of San Diego eliminated duplicate entries so that every occasion referred to a single encounter. Occasions of San Diego then filtered the incidents by race. To calculate charges, we obtained inhabitants information from the town, divided the variety of incidents for every racial group by that group’s whole inhabitants, and multiplied by 1,000 to attain per‑capita charges.
After adjusting for inhabitants, Black residents make up simply over 5% of San Diego’s inhabitants, whereas white residents comprise almost 42%. Of the almost 79,000 Black residents in San Diego, 17.4 out of each 1,000 had pressure used in opposition to them in 2025. That compares with 2.5 out of each 1,000 white folks.
The 2025 charge of 17.4 use‑of‑pressure incidents per 1,000 Black residents was slightly below the height of 17.9 per 1,000 folks recorded in 2023.
It stays properly above the 2017 stage, when almost 12 out of each 1,000 Black residents skilled police use of pressure.
Whereas the use-of-force disparity is highest between Black and white folks, the speed at which San Diego police used pressure on Hispanics additionally rose dramatically over the previous 9 years. In 2017, police reported 955 use-of-force incidents with Hispanics, which, when factoring in inhabitants, put the use-of-force ratio at 2.3 Hispanic individuals who had pressure used on them out of each 1,000 folks – the identical ratio that white residents skilled that 12 months.
The ratio, nonetheless, has elevated since, almost doubling in 2025 to 4.5 Hispanic residents per 1,000 folks.
Conversely, use-of-force ratios for white folks, based mostly on inhabitants, have remained largely unchanged since 2017. In 2025, 2.5 white residents out of each 1,000 had pressure used on them, solely a slight improve since 2017 when police reported they used pressure on 2.3 white folks out of each 1,000 people.
Racial disparities within the San Diego Police Division’s use of pressure have been current for years. In 2021, the division launched the Heart for Policing Fairness (CPE) Report, which checked out policing practices the place racial disparities have been current and the contributing elements. The report discovered that 26% of all use-of-force incidents reported between 2016 and 2020 have been in opposition to Black folks, regardless that Black residents solely made up 6.2% of the inhabitants of San Diego. White folks, then again, who represented 43% of San Diego’s inhabitants, had 38% of all use-of-force incidents. Hispanics, in accordance with the report, accounted for 31% of all use-of-force incidents, however made up of 40% of San Diego’s inhabitants.
Whereas the 2021 report was the primary of its type, no comparable report has been carried out since.
A gradual improve in pressure utilized by police
In March, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and police Chief Scott Wahl appeared collectively to current San Diego’s newest crime numbers, which confirmed crime had dropped by 6.3% in 2025 from the earlier 12 months. The info, Mayor Gloria and Chief Wahl stated, confirmed an total lower in crime from 2021 by means of 2025.
“This achievement will be largely attributed to excellent police work, significant group partnerships and efficient use of know-how,” they stated in a joint assertion on the time.
Whereas crime was down throughout that interval, the variety of police use-of-force studies elevated in every of these 4 years, in accordance with the information.
In 2021, San Diego police reported 3,969 cases of pressure used on people. As crime dropped, use of pressure spiked by almost 27% by 2025 to five,021 studies of police pressure.
The rise is much more dramatic when taking a look at use-of-force numbers since 2017. That 12 months, police reported 3,601 cases of police pressure, 39% fewer than in 2025.
Whereas police are utilizing extra pressure throughout encounters with the general public, information present that the general public can also be utilizing extra pressure in opposition to officers.
From 2021 to 2025, San Diego law enforcement officials reported a 70% improve in assaults and battery in opposition to them, in accordance with the California Incident-Primarily based Reporting System. The quantity could also be larger as a result of some incidents might go unreported, and a few studies might not clearly establish the sufferer as a regulation enforcement officer. The info from the California Incident-Primarily based Reporting System additionally doesn’t point out which assaults on officers led to pressure used on the assailant.
A mixture of ‘advanced social elements’
Simply what’s driving the rise?
In an electronic mail to Occasions of San Diego, San Diego police Lieutenant Cesar Jimenez stated that whereas forceful encounters with police “have a big influence on people and communities,” you will need to keep in mind they symbolize lower than 1% of the general public’s encounters with police.
Jimenez stated explaining the racial disparity in pressure requires a extra advanced evaluation than evaluating encounters with the share of the town’s inhabitants.
“Disparities in use of pressure, and police contacts generally, are sometimes influenced by advanced social elements similar to poverty, housing instability, and crime victimization,” Jimenez wrote. “For instance, officers have frequent contact with unhoused people in response to group issues and requests for service. As a result of Black residents are disproportionately represented amongst San Diego’s unhoused inhabitants, these contacts can contribute to disparities in enforcement information.”
However key indicators of rising poverty, homelessness, and crime victimization that San Diego police cite didn’t rise along with the years through which use-of-force incidents elevated, and because the disparity between experiences between Black, Hispanic and white residents widened.
Jimenez added that police supervisors are required to evaluation all studies of police pressure, no matter whether or not the studies are generated from police within the subject or these they encounter. As well as, he stated the town’s Fee on Police Practices critiques the studies so as to add one other layer of oversight.
“We acknowledge that disparities are advanced and require a long-term strategy,” Jimenez wrote. “By way of coaching, accountability, and sustained group engagement, SDPD stays dedicated to constructing belief and decreasing disparities wherever doable.”
‘Social and financial elements don’t use pressure; officers do.’
Legal professional and civil rights advocate Geneviéve Jones-Wright — founder and govt director of Group Advocates for Simply and Ethical Governance, or MoGo — stated utilizing socioeconomic elements to rationalize disparities in policing solely masks the true points.
“When a racial disparity reaches the best stage in a decade, the query can’t be restricted as to whether the numbers will be defined,” she stated. “The query have to be whether or not the methods producing these numbers are simply, lawful, and accountable.
“Poverty, housing instability, and crime victimization might form the circumstances below which police encounters happen, however they don’t clarify away the officers’ choices to make use of pressure,” added Jones-Wright. “They don’t absolve the division of accountability. And so they can’t be allowed to obscure the racialized influence of policing practices. Poverty, housing instability, crime victimization, and different social and financial elements don’t use pressure; officers do.”
Jones-Wright says that whereas Black folks do symbolize a higher proportion of San Diego’s unhoused inhabitants, and that socio-economics do have an effect on crime and police encounters, that ought to end in change and extra restraint, no more violent police encounters.
“San Diego can’t settle for a decade-high racial disparity within the police pressure as inevitable, incidental, or too advanced to confront.”
