Austin police report they are using physical force in more of their encounters with the public, an American-Statesman analysis of 3½ years of internal police data shows.

The steady increase in the reported cases in which officers use a weapon or their hands to compel compliance has occurred even as the number of times police come into contact with the public has steadily fallen during the same period. Arrests, too, dropped 15 percent between 2009 and 2011.