What a 3-day spike in LAPD shootings really means

After three officer-involved shootings on three consecutive days in late August, Los Angeles Police Commissioners publicly pressed Chief Jim McDonnell: What more can the department do to keep officers from opening fire? It’s a fair question — every police shooting demands scrutiny. But treating last month’s three-day cluster, or even an overall increase in shootings during a calendar year as we’re now seeing in 2025, as proof of a cultural problem misses both the long-term trend and the specific facts that determine whether any single use of force is reasonable.

Start with the trend line. In 1990, LAPD recorded 115 officer-involved shootings (OIS). Today, after decades of reform and training, the department’s post-2018 norm is down to about 32 OIS per year — a roughly 43% reduction from several years of data leading up to 2018, when the LAPD instituted a new training doctrine. And a 72% drop from 1990. That is not a statistical blip; it is a generational shift. And it coincides with a doctrine that emphasizes restraint and, most recently, “command and control” — which includes designating a leader, creating time and distance, coordinating less-lethal options and preventing contagious fire.

That expectation took on urgency after a tragic June 2018 incident at a Van Nuys church, during which a hostage was killed; the reform that followed was aimed squarely at improving coordination, reducing chaos and safeguarding the public.

Now consider what drives shootings in the first place. When we analyze three decades of data, one variable explains most of the rise and fall in OIS: violent crime. About 70% of the changes in police shootings, up or down, can be explained by violent crime levels. In practical terms, for every increase of 100 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, L.A. tends to see about three more officer-involved shootings per year. Once we account for crime, the passage of time — the calendar year — stops being a meaningful predictor. In plain English: shootings track risk, not temperament.

That’s why the most revealing test of the department’s culture is whether officers shoot more or less than the crime environment would predict. Since the command-and-control reform was implemented in 2018, LAPD has consistently averaged 7.6 fewer OIS per year. If the LAPD were truly “trigger-happy,” as some police commissioners, politicians and activists suggest, we’d see the opposite. We don’t. We see a sustained pattern of restraint relative to the level of violent crime officers confront.

What about the optics of “three officer involved shootings in three days”? It’s alarming but also uncommon. The responsible reaction is to examine each case, not infer motive from timing or headlines. All three recent incidents originated from citizen calls to 911 for violent events — not officer-initiated stops. In one, officers arrived to the sound of active gunfire and confronted an armed suspect in a vehicle. In another, a suspect produced a 12-inch knife as officers attempted to take him into custody after responding to an assault-with-a-deadly-weapon call. In the third, officers were fired upon from within a residence and returned fire; they contained the scene, called SWAT and medical support, rescued a victim and resolved the standoff with no additional gunfire. That is precisely what modern command-and-control at a police shooting is supposed to look like: supervision, coordination, time and distance and measured force.

The broader trend strengthens this point. Since 2018, the department’s annual totals for OIS have not only remained well below early-1990s levels, they have also come in below what the city’s violent-crime exposure would predict. That is exactly what you’d expect to see if reforms are working — not just reducing raw numbers in quiet years, but preventing avoidable shootings when risk spikes. When the department is judged against the actual threat environment, not just the calendar, the picture that emerges is of training, leadership and restraint bending the curve downward.

None of this means LAPD is beyond criticism. When an unarmed person is shot without sufficient threat, or tactics collapse into chaos, accountability must be real and swift. Oversight, transparency and honest auditing are necessities, not niceties. But system-level judgments should be grounded in data and context. The question isn’t, “Why three officer-involved shootings in three days?” so much as “What were the facts in each incident, and how are we doing over time?”

If commentators want a single sentence to carry forward, try this: Since 2018, LAPD has consistently opened fire less often than violent-crime rates would predict — that’s not trigger-happiness; that’s professionalism. That story looks less like a culture of excess and more like a department that, while imperfect, has established itself as the best in practice by applying order and discipline in the moments that matter most. For that, LAPD and its officers deserve thanks and respect.

Paul B. Vernon is a retired LAPD captain (33 years) and CEO of West Coast Police Integrity Advisors LLC.