Are police handcuffed by street check rules?

Have we severely handicapped police investigative work with new rules?

In 2017, police forces across Ontario began using new rules for street checks — the practice of stopping, identifying and keeping records on individuals engaged in suspicious activity.

Solid evidence emerged that the old system was racially-biased and feeding secret caches of information about me, you, the dog and Uncle Mo.

So the Ministry of Community Safety, supported by human rights rulings, brought down the hammer.

Outside of traffic stops or investigating a specific crime, officers are now required to offer a written receipt if they stop and ask for identifying information while: looking into suspicious activity, gathering intelligence, or checking “possible” criminal activity.

The effect? Dramatic. In Ottawa in 2015 — a year with more than 40 shootings — there were 7,000 street checks, in 2016 there were 4,000 and in 2017 there were exactly four “regulated interactions.”

The police brass will say this is a growing pain in the new system and the number four doesn’t reflect the number of useful interactions with citizens where identity is not requested.

Really? Isn’t it more likely Ontario’s new rules have swung the balance too far the other way? In the interest of attacking racial bias, have we severely handicapped basic investigative work?

Here’s an honest opinion from a cop on the inside about today’s street-check policies:

“Try to imagine why police are not doing these checks and you will see why,” he writes in an email. (Identifying him would put his job at risk.)

“Before we can even decide to have an interaction, we must have a specific reason, and we must tell them why, and that they can walk away no problem, at any time, during the interaction and don’t have to speak to us. After the interaction, we must provide a receipt to them indicating who we are and how to complain about us if they were not happy with the interaction. Further, even if they didn’t say anything, we have to submit a regulated interaction written report indicating how we interacted according to the legislation. All this while speaking to a potential criminal type or gang member who is throwing verbal abuse at us while filming with their video cameras and then calling to complain the next day.”

Remember, too, this email was written within days of a new study that found up to 70 per cent of front-line officers are engaging in “de-policing,” a trend to ignore pro-active police work for fear of public scrutiny. (In other words, just answer calls for service and ignore everything else, crudely called the “F**k It, Drive On” or F.I.D.O. mentality.)

“Why, on earth,” the veteran cop continued, “would an officer subject themselves to that potential for recrimination when it may well impact negatively on the individual officer if a complaint is generated?

“After all, as you know, we are judged guilty by the media many times even before the two-year (Special Investigations Unit or Office of the Independent Police Review Director) complaints are returned saying all was good by police, or vice versa, and we get suspended or charged under the Police Act.”

He also pointed to the optics of an overwhelmingly white police force dealing with an ethnically diverse population.

“The minority groups say we are lying. It doesn’t matter what we do, we are racists. There is much frustration within all our ranks. We police believe there is a guns-and-gang problem, and we police joined to fight crime wanting to help our communities.

“It is true that we need help from the public but how is it helpful that our courts release these VERY dangerous gangbangers even after we charge them, so they go back to living beside those citizens who have provided info on them, and word gets around, so the bad guys know who ratted (they aren’t dumb). I would not want my family doing this. These people are dangerous.”

What he didn’t mention is the bureaucratic burden the new system imposes on police work, already a profession with a frightening amount of oversight.

According to a report to the Ottawa Police Services Board in January, an eight-hour training program on “regulated interactions” was given to 1,000 Ottawa police officers. With add-ons, the cost was $546,000.

There is now to be an annual report on “regulated interactions” and the force has a “regulated interactions coordinator” who reviewed every encounter in 2017. The reports also keep track of the racial makeup of even attempted collection of information. Last year, there were seven: Asian (one), Black (one), Middle Eastern (two), Caucasian (three).

The unintended effect of all this?

We now have virtually no official data on street checks, which makes it look like the racial problem has disappeared. Are we fixing the problem, or just exchanging it for a new one?

A public meeting on this issue is scheduled for April 16. The bullets, in any case, keep flying.

We now have virtually no official data on street checks, which makes it look like the racial problem has disappeared.