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South Lake Tahoe police present use-of-force data, school officer report and AB 481 equipment summary
Summary
Lieutenants and sergeants presented the department's 2025 use-of-force statistics, training and oversight processes, a school resource officer summary of campus safety duties and incidents, and the department's annual AB 481 report on "military equipment" (including drones and an armored vehicle); presenters emphasized transparency and routine reviews.
Lieutenant Russell Lyles presented the South Lake Tahoe Police Department's use-of-force framework and 2025 statistics, saying the department documented 39 uses of force out of 26,405 incidents (about 0.15 percent).
"Last year, we had 26,405 incidents. We had 39 uses of force," Lyles said, then walked commissioners through reporting thresholds, injury categories and demographic counts. He tied department practice to guidance from key case law and California standards, citing Graham v. Connor and Tennessee v. Garner as the legal background for the department's reasonableness and deadly-force rules. Lyles described a use-of-force committee and a review process: "As soon as a use of force report is created, I get a text message right then and there," he said, explaining supervisors and a review committee examine each report and training staff follow up when improvements are identified.
School Resource Officer Timothy Peterson summarized 2025 work across five campuses, listing incident counts concentrated at the high school (about 170 incidents) and noting three arrests during the year; he described non-enforcement interventions, bicycle and ebike safety assemblies, and plans for a spring ebike pilot program.
Administrative Lieutenant Doug Sintel reviewed the department's annual "yearbook" report, highlighting staffing gains, field training successes, traffic and marine operations, the evidence unit and improvements in dispatch and data reporting. The report includes RIPA-related statistics and stop data; Sintel noted the records division reported a 0% error rate to the state reporting system for submitted incidents.
Sergeant Carlquist briefed the commission on Assembly Bill 481 reporting: under California's definitions the department lists five categories of equipment on its public AB 481 report (including drones, armored vehicles and command/control vehicles). He told commissioners that the department is 100% compliant with required inspections and that the department had received no public complaints about those items.
Commissioners asked about training frequency (in-house training quarterly, perishable skills every two years), after-action review practices and whether CSOs receive the same de-escalation training as sworn officers; presenters said de-escalation training is emphasized, CSOs receive some components but not full use-of-force modules that are limited to sworn personnel, and that the department has increased proactive enforcement while keeping use-of-force rates roughly flat. No formal policy changes were adopted at the meeting; staff said they will continue routine reporting and transparency efforts.
