Saskatoon police say spitting suspects have forced increased use of disposable hoods
Suspects have threatened to spit COVID-19 at arresting officers 44 times
It's a statistic that speaks to the perils of policing in a pandemic.
Saskatoon Police used "spit socks" — disposable hoods that are slipped over the heads of aggressive suspects — 44 times in 2020.
"There was a significant increase in the use of spit socks in 2020," said a report on use of force going to the Saskatoon Board of Police Commissioners.
"Information gleaned from officer's reports would indicate that this is due to perceived and at times threatened attempt of suspects to spit the COVID-19 disease at arresting officers."
A police spokesperson did not know whether any officers contracted COVID-19 from such an interaction, nor whether the spitting resulted in any charges against suspects.
The report details the various uses of force by officers last year.
The tactical support team was deployed 62 times to 45 occurrences (some incidents had multiple deployments), but physical force was used on suspects only twice.
"The mere presence of the TSU team is often enough to have suspects surrender peacefully," the report said.
The use of conducted energy weapons, or Tasers, dropped 22 per cent last year to 25 instances.
The number of times police used a dog to help with an arrest totalled 42, compared with 43 instances in 2019 and 21 times in 2018.
The report said that police used force in less than one per cent of their calls.
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