LAPD officers have shot 11 people since Aug. 1, twice the number of people shot by officers during the same time period in 2022, although the total number of police shootings year-to-date in 2023 is still below last year at this time, police data shows.
"To date this year, what we've seen as far as an increase is the number of knives, edged weapons," Chief Michel Moore told the I-Team in response to questions about the recent increase in the frequency of police shootings.
Moore told the Board of Police Commissioners Tuesday that officers shot two men in the last week -- one fatally on Sept. 13, who police said charged at Olympic Division officers while holding a large kitchen knife that had been stolen from a street food vendor.
Two days later officers shot and wounded a man, who Moore said pointed an object that looked like a handgun at Newton Division officers during a search for a group of burglars.
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The object turned out to be a hammer.
Bianca Palmer, the younger sister of Jessica Brown, who was shot to death by officers in Tarzana in July, pleaded with the commissioners Tuesday to do more to prevent what she said were needless killings of people experiencing a mental health crisis.
“Just do better please, I know y’all know already, but this one really hurt. Just be more vigilant," she said. "When did need help, and what did y’all do - you shot and killed her."
Palmer attended the meeting with a large contingent of demonstrators who urged the Commission to remove Moore from his job as Chief.
Jessica Brown was confronted by police at a gas station July 9 after 911 callers reported that Brown had attacked and injured four people by striking them with a heavy metal bar.
Edited segments of the officers' body worn video posted on YouTube by the LAPD showed Brown raising the bar with her right hand and trying to strike one officer who was holding her at gunpoint. Simultaneously two other officers, armed with less-lethal weapons, fired in unsuccessful attempts to subdue her before she was killed.
The LAPD's published list of shootings and serious uses of force also includes one shooting in which no one was struck by gunfire, two shootings of dogs, and one accidental firing that happened inside a police station, in which no one was injured.
Moore said in the I-Team interview that officers had resolved countless other confrontations with armed individuals this year, but said those incidents received little to no public attention.
"Many of those instances happen with no or little or no fanfare or public understanding," Moore said.
"When it does go wrong, meaning that it does go bad, and we resort to the use of deadly force, we put this information out," he said, referring to the department's policy of releasing segments of officers' body-worn video and other visual evidence in edited presentations posted to YouTube.
LAPD rules limit the release of body-worn video to shootings and certain other uses of force, which has unintentionally turned the department's YouTube channel into a seemingly endless stream of videos showing officers shooting people.
The department has made efforts to reduce the number of shootings, by emphasizing de-escalation techniques, equipping more officers with less-lethal weapons beyond Taser stun guns, and policy decisions that have restricted escalations in force. It is also adding more officers to specialized teams that respond to mental health emergencies.
"We ended 2022 with 31 [police shootings]," Moore told the I-Team.
"The year before that, it was 37. The historic lows to this organization is 26 and 27 officer involved shootings a year," he said.
"Those happened within the last five years."
