CORNWALL – Cornwall police officers were pulling their tasers or handguns a little less when dealing with calls in 2020.
The annual use of force report released at the Cornwall Police Services Board meeting this morning (March 3) shows officers had 36 times where use of force had to be exercised.
That’s a drop of 10 per cent as there were 40 instances in 2019.
The most common was displaying a taser, which happened 16 times and firing it 11 times. “Of the 11 deployments, two incidents had two deployments. Since 2015, the CEW (conducted energy weapon) has been used an average of 18 times per year,” the report states.
Pointing or displaying a handgun happened seven times in 2020 – the same as in 2019. No officer had to fire their service weapon as part of a critical situation. But there were three instances last year where an officer had to use a gun to destroy an animal that is not included in the use of force totals.
Based on a review of each case, no officer remedial training was needed.
Officers conducted 1,823 arrests in 2020 – about the same as in 2019. At no time did any of the arrests result in somebody having to seek medical attention for any injuries, according to the report.