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ST. LOUIS — About 25% of residents interviewed here told researchers they have experienced or witnessed police officers using force, according to a report released Thursday morning by a national research organization that aims to improve relations between communities and police.

The findings were part of an analysis by the Center for Policing Equity, which found that three common needs were identified by residents: more investment of resources in historically Black neighborhoods, more non-police crisis responders and stronger accountability measures for police officers. The organization did not define the use of force for survey respondents.

The CPE interviewed 112 residents, focusing on Black residents in police districts where the use of force most often occurred.

“I think so much of the report is designed to build on the existing work in St. Louis that a lot of advocates have been working on for decades now, but especially after the death of Mike Brown,” said Hans Menos, vice president of CPE’s triage response team. “Our goal was to uplift that work.”

The survey was a follow-up to an initial analysis that published 18 months ago that recommended St. Louis police rearrange officer assignments to create a more equal workload across the city and proposed creating a civilian position housed outside the police department, referred to as a community service officer.

Menos said Wednesday he does not know if those changes were adopted when new police Chief Robert Tracy took over the department earlier this year.

Tracy and Public Safety Director Charles Coyle did not respond to a request for comment.

Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said in a statement the city’s work with CPE “presents us with opportunities for more equitable community policing” and said she appreciated Tracy for supporting her commitment to “enhancing these strategies and pursuing more data-driven public safety solutions.”

CPE is a nonprofit research center based at Yale University that gathers and analyzes data to help communities develop safer policing practices and more equitable public safety resources.

Both the initial report and Thursday’s follow-up report were done at no cost to the city.

Menos highlighted several efforts that his organization has undertaken with the city since the publication of its initial analysis, including working with the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and Farrakhan Shegog, who works for the Urban League and Young Voices with Action, which provides hunger relief and youth empowerment programs in the region.

But almost half of the 109-page report released Thursday focused on a police use-of-force policy that was written by St. Louis residents.

“This is a first of its kind that I’m aware of, where advocates from the city were asked to co-create a policy as significant as a use-of-force policy,” he said. “Not recommendations, but an actual written policy that, if the department chooses, they could copy and paste it.”

The group submitted the policy to Coyle, the city’s public safety director, in March, but it has not been adopted.

Coyle responded with a letter to the CPE that said the new chief “was focused on aligning his staffing to meet the needs of the department to address violent crime” and planned to create a use-of-force policy through a similar process to the one he used at his previous job in Wilmington, Delaware: working with experts to draft the policy that is then approved by elected officials, officers and the community.

“We are aware that allowing the public to have input and to be a part of the discussion around use of force increase the department’s transparency and increase the public’s trust of the process,” Coyle wrote in his response letter.

Menos told the Post-Dispatch he is still hopeful the department will use the new policy.

CPE’s latest effort also involved compiling data about crimes and public safety to present to residents and community advocates to inform policy and strategy recommendations for police use of force, behavioral health 911 response and domestic violence support services.

“What you will see in our work is really our effort to attempt to improve systems that we do have while building the systems that we need — policies and strategies are an example in improving existing systems,” he said. “We have to do both. We can’t silo one aspect of the work.”

Another community group submitted a proposed behavioral and mental health response policy, which outlines when and how 911 calls can be diverted from police to other responders such as social workers and behavior health specialists.

The city received that proposal in January, but Coyle said in a response letter to that proposal that it came just nine days after Tracy took on his role as the city’s top cop and that the chief was still finding his footing. Coyle noted in that letter that nearly 6,000 calls to 911 were diverted to behavioral health responders in the city in 2022.

He said the department was reviewing the policy and that Tracy was also focused on finding additional training for officers to handle those kinds of calls.

Thursday’s report can be found .