The conduct of police officers across North America has come into question recently leading many to wonder what the appropriate tactics should be when dealing with certain crimes and minority groups.
The issue came to a head following the death of George Floyd, which led to Black Lives Matter (BLM) Demonstrations across Canada and the United States including two in Prince George.
Prince George RCMP Superintendent Shawn Wright sat down with MyPGNow.com regarding several topics.
Wright attended the first BLM protest and was pretty happy with how it all turned out.
“It was well organized, it was calm and friendly and almost something that I would consider along the lines of a textbook example of freedom of expression.”
Wright also talked about the outlawing of chokeholds, stating they are only used by officers in life-threatening situations.
He mentioned that de-escalation training continues to be offered by the RCMP to its members.
A strong indigenous presence was seen throughout both BLM demonstrations leading us to ask Prince George’s top cop if the rallies and the issue surrounding Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women via the Highway of Tears are intertwined in our area.
“I would say that yes they have been because they are similar calls from racialized communities that feel marginalized and obviously their struggles are connected up here.”
The Highway of Tears consists of a 725-kilometer corridor of Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, which has been the location of many murders and disappearances beginning in 1970 with a large portion of the victims identified as Indigenous.
Wright was also tasked with responding on if there have been any complaints or suggestions of racial profiling in Prince George by police.
“I think you would be hard-pressed to find any community where that sentiment hasn’t been expressed at some point so Prince George isn’t immune to that but you know what, we are an intelligence-led organization where we focus our efforts primarily on where our crime is occurring and where our resources can best support public safety. As long as we follow those principles I think it’s easy to defend our employment of resources.”
Another burning question is what kind of education officers receive when dealing with things like racism whether it’s taking place at work or if officers are being accused of it by minority groups.
Wright stated police members are briefed on these situations early on.
“Our cadet training incorporates a lot of that sensitivity training for both Indigenous and LGBTQ communities and some other marginalized groups in society so we do have that initial training as well as subsequently we do have specific training to deal with Indigenous people and other groups.”
“And if there were any substantiated complaints of some sort of misconduct further training and sensitivity could be assigned.”
In addition, Wright spent some time discussing the public suggestion that mental health professionals should be the first on the scene to deal with mental health calls instead of police and if it would be beneficial to hire these professionals full-time.
He added the Prince George detachment does have something in place with Northern Health called the Car 60 program where a mental health crisis nurse rides along with an on-duty officer.
“I think we have bridged a lot of that gap and really that’s a partnership where the police provide the safety and authority from the law enforcement perspective under the Mental Health Act and the Criminal Code whereas the mental health nurse is there de-escalate and take the frontline approach to those individuals.”
When asked if Wright could see the detachment make a request for more mental health workers instead of officers, he responded with this:
“I wouldn’t say that’s a policing responsibility to fund a position like that or provide it, there are a lot of ministries in societies that have failed to meet their obligations or have abdicated those to police on a 24/7 basis and left us to fill the cracks. If those agencies wanted to provide resources to those initial calls for service we would be happy to work with them.”
“I really wouldn’t want to focus on the mental health responsibility falling on the local government though, that’s truly a provincial responsibility and if you look at similar-sized cities to Prince George across the province you can really see the effects of a lack of resources in that area.”
In May, the local RCMP reported significant results on their increased presence within the downtown core, an area that has been a major point of contention for many residents and businesses due to the volume of social issues that were brought up at a special council meeting over the winter.
“We knew we had to take some enforcement action so we did what we could and that is the primary role of police enforcement so any unacceptable behaviour and we increased our presence down there to make it known that those behaviours won’t be tolerated in public,” added Wright.
From May 15th to 25th, the RCMP:
- Arrested a dozen people with active warrants
- Issued approximately 125 violation tickets, primarily for bicycle-related and open liquor offences
- Self-generated 40 Criminal Code or Controlled Drugs and Substances Act investigations, ten of which resulted in reports to the Federal Prosecution Service of Canada or the BC Prosecution Service
- Found ten persons drunk in public and unable to care for themselves
On the topic of crime stats, Wright stated 2020 has been a bit of a unique year due to the pandemic when compared to 2019, however, he expects everything to even out as we slowly head back to normal.
“Last year, we were up about 10% in calls for service over the previous year and that put us at about 30% above our calls for service in 2016 so we were slightly above that going into January and February before the pandemic hit.”
Right now, year-to-date over last year Wright said the northern capital is down about three percent.