Politics
The Number of Times CPD Officers Used Force Against People Increased 10% During 1st Half of 2025: Data
(WTTW News)
Chicago police officers used force against members of the public 1,645 times during the first six months of 2025, an increase of nearly 10% as compared with the first half of 2024, according to Chicago Police Department data published Tuesday.
In addition, CPD officers pointed their guns at individuals 2,229 times between Jan. 1, 2025, and June 30, an increase of approximately 9% as compared with the same period during the previous year, according to CPD’s mid-year report documenting officers’ use of force.
The report acknowledges that the number of times officers used force against members of the public “continues to trend upward.”
Representatives of CPD did not respond to a request for comment from WTTW News about why CPD officers are using force more often against members of the public.
The mid-year report on officers’ use of force is required by the terms of the consent decree, the federal court order designed to compel CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers.
Chicago’s homicide rate dropped by approximately 29% during the first half of 2025, as compared with 2024, and the city’s overall violent crime rate decreased by more than 21%, according to CPD data.
Chicago Police Department officers shot 13 people, killing seven, during the first half of 2025, more than the number of people officers shot and killed in all of 2024, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
CPD is not scheduled to publish its report on officers’ use of force in all of 2025 until June 2026. In all of 2025, officers shot 22 people, killing nine, according to WTTW News' analysis of data released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
CPD officers pointed a gun at a person, on average, more than 12 times every day between Jan. 1, 2025, and June 30, according to the mid-year report on officers’ use of force.
In more than 69% of those incidents, the person that an officer pointed their weapon at did not have a gun, according to the mid-year report.
Officers also hit people with batons, doused members of the public with pepper spray and shocked individuals with Tasers more often during the first half of 2025 as compared with the first half of 2024, records show.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s Office told U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer in November that the significant increase in the number of times CPD officers have used force against members of the public since 2022 threatens to derail the effort to reform CPD.
The coalition of police reform groups that forced the city to agree to federal court oversight told Pallmeyer in September that the number of times officers have shot, tased, struck and choked a member of the public violates the consent decree.
CPD officers used the highest level of force against a member of the public — including a gunshot, chokehold or a baton strike to the head or neck — 84 times in 2024, more than double the number of times officers used the highest level of force in 2023, according to CPD data cited by the coalition.
During the first six months of 2025, CPD officials reviewed 29 reports documenting the highest level of force against members of the public, according to the mid-year report. By comparison, officials reviewed 25 reports documenting the highest level of force during the first half of 2024, records show.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
