use of force

New data shows police in Fairfax County, Virginia, disproportionately use force against people of color. New data shows police in Fairfax County, Virginia, disproportionately use force against people of color. Fairfax County officials hired a team of researchers from multiple universities to study data about how and when officers are using force against the public. They presented their findings to…

Rights activists held a news conference in Annapolis after two videos of forceful arrests by Ocean City police went viral. News4’s Darcy Spencer reports.

A Prince George’s County police officer was indicted Tuesday after allegedly assaulting a Black 17-year-old boy he took into custody last fall.

A Prince George’s County police officer was indicted Tuesday after allegedly assaulting a Black 17-year-old boy he took into custody last fall.  Cpl. Darryl Wormuth was indicted on a first-degree assault charge. He also is charged with second-degree assault and misconduct in office, the department said Wednesday. He was suspended without pay. Wormuth, who has been with the department...

Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, delivered damning testimony in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd, saying, “No reasonable officer would have believed that that was an appropriate, acceptable or reasonable use of force.”

Sgt. Jody Stiger of the Los Angeles Police Department, an expert witness for the prosecution in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, testified Tuesday that the use of force on George Floyd was excessive. Once Floyd was on the ground, “at that point, the officers… should have slowed down or stopped their force as well.”

A report on use of force report found D.C. police didn’t do enough to investigate four cases where officers fatally shot Black men.

A report on use of force report found D.C. police didn’t do enough to investigate four cases where officers fatally shot Black men. News4’s Aimee Cho reports.

The use of force on peaceful protesters and journalists in the District triggered international outrage. Now Congress is looking into it. The House Committee on Natural Resources held the first hearing Monday. Investigative Reporter Jodie Fleischer reports on the key questions for lawmakers.

The Alexandria Police Department is seeking to fire an officer who was found to have unnecessarily used force against a man.  The officer, who the city did not name, used “weaponless force” against a man’s leg in order to take him to the ground, the city said in a statement Friday. An investigation found that the use of force...

New numbers show Fairfax County police used force dramatically more in confrontations with Black people compared with white people.

Fairfax County Police Department officers use force on African Americans far more often than they do on people of other races and ethnicities, new data from the department says.  A report from the department’s internal affairs bureau analyzed cases in 2019. Out of nearly 600 reviews of use of force for the year, 53% of incidents were against Black people,…

Washington, D.C.-area police departments deployed pepper spray nearly 300 times last year, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team.  The use of the spray varies widely community-by-community and is frequently the source of complaints from citizens against law enforcement, the I-Team found. Nearly two-thirds of last year’s recorded pepper spray deployments in the region were made by two...