Crime & Law
CPD’s Increasing Use of Force Requires a ‘Full-Scale Review’: Illinois Attorney General
The significant increase in the number of times Chicago police officers have used force against members of the public since 2022 merits a “full-scale review,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office told a federal judge.
A coalition of police reform groups, which forced the city to agree to federal court oversight, told U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer seven months ago that the number of times officers have shot, Tased, struck or choked a member of the public violates the consent decree, the federal court order requiring officers to stop routinely violating Black and Latino residents’ constitutional rights.
Chicago police officers used force against members of the public 3,044 times during 2025, an increase of approximately 6.4% as compared with 2024, according to CPD data provided to Pallmeyer.
Between 2023, when Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling took office, and 2025, the number of times police officers used force against a member of the public increased approximately 35.8%, according to CPD data.
Snelling has said the increase is the result of officers reporting those incidents accurately for the first time as a result of consent decree compliance.
The number of excessive force allegations filed against CPD officers rose 53% between 2022 and 2025, according to CPD data presented to Pallmeyer.
According to data from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which is charged with investigating serious police misconduct, excessive force complaints rose 46%.
In a previous statement, a CPD spokesperson said it would be “inaccurate” to “characterize an increase in excessive force complaints as a definitive increase in use of force” by police officers, since those allegations have not been probed for accuracy.
Assistant Attorney General Mike Tresnowski told Pallmeyer during an April 14 hearing that there are “concerning trends regarding the increases in use of force” by CPD officers that merit additional scrutiny.
“We believe it’s appropriate to talk about a full-scale review of compliance,” Tresnowski said. “The review could involve pulling a representative sample of uses of force incidents and asking about each incident. Was this use of force reasonable? Was this use of force necessary? Was this use of force proportional? Was the use of force in line with the department’s commitment to de-escalation?”
Tresnowski said he was particularly concerned by a 98% increase in the use of force against children from 2022 to 2024 and a 42.9% increase in the use of the highest level of force from 2023 to 2024.
Snelling told Pallmeyer he was concerned that such a review would not take into account that “officers are human beings and they will make mistakes.”
“Are there times where our officers have used excessive force? Yes, and we can look historically at some of those things,” Snelling said. “But is that the most common practice that every time an officer uses force that the force is excessive? No, what we need to do is look at what’s proportional, what is reasonable, under the totality of the circumstances test, to be applied.”
Along with the coalition, the attorney general’s office sued to force the city to agree to federal court oversight. That binding agreement, known as the consent decree, requires CPD to overhaul the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers.
Snelling does not have the power to thwart the review demanded by the attorney general under the terms of the consent decree.
“I’m always open for recommendations and how we can do things better,” Snelling said. “But that would require everyone to sit down and take a deeper dive into what’s within the numbers.”
Snelling has repeatedly said that he does not believe that CPD officers are actually using force against Chicagoans more often but simply reporting those incidents accurately for the first time as compliance ramps up with the consent decree.
Snelling told Pallmeyer that CPD officers are using force more often against children because of an increase in the number of large teen gatherings.
A preliminary assessment by CPD of the increase in the number of times CPD officers have used force against members of the public between 2021 and 2024 indicates that it is “connected to the newly defined levels of force, overall increases as a result of a sharp decline in crime and police interactions during the COVID pandemic, enhancements to Use of Force policies and training and improved reporting procedures,” according to the most recent report from the monitors.
Commander James Berlage, recently promoted to lead CPD’s Force Review Unit, acknowledged that a court-ordered, first-of-its-kind study found that officers disproportionately used force against Black and Latino Chicagoans, even when considering they are more likely to be arrested or suspected of committing a crime in the city.
The study, conducted by social scientists from the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Pennsylvania hired by CPD brass and crafted with the approval of a court-appointed monitoring team, blamed “systemic factors” for the disparity, not the actions of individual officers.
The study was published nearly a year ago, but not made public until the coalition obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request and WTTW News reported on it.
Berlage told Pallmeyer CPD spent “significant time going through the analysis and the research.”
“I want to acknowledge that there has been disappointment in the community with how long it took us to publish the professors’ report,” Berlage said. “We acknowledge that. We have to do better, we will do better.”
While the number of times officers pointed their guns at individuals increased 44% between 2022 and 2024, the number of firearm pointing incidents — as CPD refers to them — increased just 0.2% between 2024 and 2025, Berlage said.
In addition, there has been a “significant decline” in the use of Tasers and pepper spray against members of the public, said Noe Flores, the deputy director of CPD’s Office of Analysis and Evaluation, which is part of the department’s Strategic Initiatives Division.
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.
In all of 2025, officers shot 22 people, killing nine, according to WTTW News’ analysis of city data. Since the start of 2026, officers have shot two people, killing one, 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]
