By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton Police reported seven incidents where police officers had to use force during the first five months of this year.
But Police Chief Nicholas K. Sutter on Monday cautioned against reading too much into the numbers on their own. He said a use of force instance could be as simple as a suspect pulling his hand while being handcuffed and officers needing to grab that person’s hand, restrain it and then handcuff that person.
Though only one encounter, it gets recorded as two use of force incidents “because two officers grabbed the person’s arm.”
He said numbers are not “always indicative of the whole story.”
Amid heightened focus on police conduct, the Princeton Council is getting regular updates of the number of use of force incidents by local police. The total now gets included in the monthly reports that the department provides the governing body; previously they had been part of the annual report.
Councilwoman Jo Butler had said in May that she thought police would “think twice” about using force if they knew officials were monitoring them more closely.
She has tried to walk back that comment a little bit. On Monday, she said that she did not want police “worried about Jo Butler looking over their shoulders.”
At the same time, she believes police are “paying attention” and said she intended to ask Chief Sutter at Monday’s meeting about what she saw as an uptick of such incidents this year.
In 2014, police had 10 use of force incidents involving 11 people.
For his part, Chief Sutter said every use of force incident is reviewed internally.
He said that when the officer involved completes his or her report, the matter goes to a sergeant, to a lieutenant, to internal affairs and then to himself.
“We look at the actions of the officers, we look at what caused it (and) see if there’s a better way to do it,” he said.
