(Des Moines – KCCI) State Police in Iowa drew their weapons and used force against suspects significantly more often in 2020 than prior years, due to a major increase in resistance. That’s according to an internal annual report conducted by the Iowa Department of Public Safety. The data comes from detailed reports that officers must complete whenever they use force, regardless of whether injuries result.

The report on force incidents found that suspects fled in vehicles and on foot from officers far more often in 2020. It found that officers responded by drawing their handguns, shotguns and rifles 269 times in 2020, an 83% percent increase from the prior year.

Officers also took or ordered suspects to the ground in dozens of more cases compared to 2019. While rare, officers also fired their weapons, deployed chemical spray, shot nonlethal munitions such as rubber bullets, intentionally struck vehicles and used stun guns more often in 2020 than 2019, the report found.

Officers discharged their weapons in two cases in 2020 compared with none in 2019, killing one person, an armed Black man who had allegedly threatened to shoot a female hostage in Webster City. He was the only person killed in any of the incidents, while at least three dozen other suspects suffered visible injuries. Twenty injuries to officers resulted in at least some medical treatment, while many others were categorized as minor.

The 22-page report did not seek to explain what was causing more suspects to resist officers and did not mention either the pandemic or the nationwide protests against racial injustice and police brutality. The increase in force cases began in January 2020 and continued most of the year across the state, decreasing only in April compared with 2019, according to the data.

The report said all sworn officers will complete training courses on those subjects, and that de-escalation will be incorporated into required defensive tactics training.