Montgomery County, Maryland

Racial disparities persist in police use of force, even after adjusting for population

An analysis of Montgomery County Police Department use-of-force records through Nov. 25, 2025 finds large per-capita gaps by officer and subject race, including in incidents involving unarmed civilians.

By Charlie Raibman

What this project examines

Montgomery County publishes detailed records of police use-of-force incidents, offering the public a way to examine how and against whom force is used. Raw totals can be misleading because groups differ in population size, so this project focuses on per-capita rates. This analysis uses Montgomery County Police Department use-of-force records through November 25, 2025, comparing incident rates by officer race, subject race and whether a subject was armed.

Method note: All rates shown are incidents per 10,000 residents. Population estimates used here include approximately 194,000 Black residents and 428,000 White residents.

Use of force rates by officer and subject race

Incidents involving White officers and Black subjects occurred at a much higher per-capita rate than incidents involving Black officers and White subjects.

Unarmed encounters show a similar gap

The difference persists even when looking only at incidents in which subjects were unarmed. In the data, use-of-force incidents involving White officers and unarmed Black subjects occurred at a far higher rate per 10,000 Black residents than incidents involving Black officers and unarmed White subjects per 10,000 White residents.

These data do not determine legal wrongdoing or intent in individual encounters. Use-of-force reporting documents incidents, not court outcomes, and does not capture every detail of each interaction. However, examining consistent differences in per-capita rates helps identify patterns that warrant public attention.

Use of force involving unarmed subjects

Per-capita rates remain sharply different even after restricting the analysis to incidents involving unarmed civilians.

Comparing overall force and unarmed force

Looking at total use-of-force incidents alongside unarmed-only incidents helps clarify whether armed status explains the disparities seen in the data. In Montgomery County, the overall pattern remains consistent: per-capita rates involving White officers and Black subjects are substantially higher in both categories.

Who makes up the Montgomery County Police Department

Officer demographics provide context for understanding who is most often involved in police encounters. The Montgomery County Police Department is majority White and predominantly male, shaping the makeup of the force interacting with residents across the county.

Share of police use-of-force incidents compared with share of population

Comparing the share of use-of-force incidents to each group’s share of Montgomery County’s population highlights whether force is distributed proportionally. Groups whose share of incidents exceeds their share of the population experience force at disproportionate levels, while groups below parity experience it less frequently.

How to interpret these findings

Per-capita comparisons help account for population size, but they do not explain why disparities occur. Differences may reflect policing strategies, deployment patterns, neighborhood context, or other factors not captured in the dataset. To better understand what the data can and cannot show, this project also incorporates outside research and a live source.

After speaking to multiple Montgomery County residents, I found that most people were surprised to hear that there was such a large disparity in police use-of-force incidents between races. While people were aware of these issues across the country, I found that most people assumed Montgomery County would not show similar trends due to how liberal it is. However, this data shows that even in extremely left-leaning areas, racial disparities among the police still exist. (Maryland has not had a Republican senator since 1987 and the two congressional districts that cover Montgomery County, Districts six and eight, have not had a Republican representative since 2012)