Only around 1.3 percent of Santa Barbara’s population is black. Yet when police get physical ― with kicks, punches, baton-strikes, and take-downs, as well as other forms of muscle like tasers, pepper spray, and canines ― 8.7 percent of the time, the target of their force is black. Latinos make up just 36.5 percent of the city’s population but were involved in 44.2 percent of use-of-force incidents.
These statistics are included in a nine-page document provided by the Santa Barbara Police Department in response to questions this week from the Santa Barbara Independent and community groups while coast-to-coast protests continue over the death of George Floyd and long-standing grievances around racial disparities in policing. The Independent is requesting additional information from the department and will be asking the county Sheriff’s Office for similar data.
Since 2015, city police have logged 788 force incidents out of 355,777 total contacts; 69 of them involved black people, 346 involved Latinos, and 339 involved white individuals. Overall, police used force in 0.22 percent of their interactions with the public. That figure dropped to as low as 0.18 percent in 2017 and has risen to a high of 0.36 percent through June 1 of 2020.