THE SHOTS NOT TAKEN
Police deal with more guns on Saskatchewan streets than ever before, but most don’t believe it will lead to a major increase in the number of police-involved shootings as our American neighbours have seen.
It is no longer just the big cities like Toronto and Vancouver that have all the gun violence. We’re just two really separate cultures in terms of firearms.
Shortly after midnight on May 29, members of the Regina Police Service were on an unrelated call when they spotted a man standing in the shadows.
Clearly heavily intoxicated, he was behaving strangely.
Then they noticed he had something in his left hand.
Police approached the figure, illuminating him in their flashlight beams while identifying themselves as police. One of the officers noted the object looked to be a handgun, and he was pointing it at the officer.
When the man was sentenced for a weapons offence, court heard it was only the “keen observations” of the officer — who, spotting a bit of orange around the gun’s tip, was able to identify it as an airsoft pistol — that prevented a potential tragedy.
A few years earlier, in August 2014, an intoxicated man fired multiple shots from inside a Saskatoon house, aiming at vehicles being used as cover by his family and police officers. The man would later say he’d been trying to get police to shoot him.
They didn’t — a response a judge praised as showing “remarkable restraint.”
“I thank them for not shooting me,” the gunman told the court through tears. “I don’t know why they didn’t, but I’m thankful.”
Rick Parent recounts an incident from his policing days in which a custody battle led to gunfire and a high-speed chase. After police fired shots to disable the man’s truck, Parent smashed out the window in an attempt to get the man out.
What followed was what he today describes as a “Mexican standoff ” — the police officer and the suspect each with guns drawn and pointed at each other.
Parent recognized the danger of his predicament. Yet, he didn’t shoot.
Remarkably, neither did the suspect.
“He could have but he didn’t, which was lucky for me,” says Parent. “And vice versa. I could have shot him easily, but I didn’t for whatever reason. I don’t know why to this day.”
In the end, Parent was able to pull the man out of the car, no shots exchanged on either side.
Parent recalls the dangerous standoff in talking about gun crime and the response of Canadian police officers. The standoff he describes happened in the 1990s when he was a police officer in Delta, B.C.
But such scenarios are playing out more frequently on Saskatchewan streets, witnessing an increase in criminals willing to reach for a gun.
And prompting a response by police officers, forced to make splitsecond decisions about resorting to lethal force to stop a threat. More often that not, Canadian officers have opted not to do so.
A comparison between Canada and our nearest neighbour — a country that, like ours, contains numerous firearms — shows police north of the border are far less likely to use lethal force than their American counterparts.
Parent — retired after 30 years in policing, and now an associate professor of Police Studies at Simon Fraser University’s School of Criminology — has devoted his time to studying this issue. He notes the per capita number of fatal police-involved shootings in the United States is roughly five times that in Canada. When looking at the last years from which he compiled data (2014 for Canada and 2015 for the U.S.), he notes roughly one fatal shooting per 320,000 in the U.S. versus one per 1.85 million in Canada. In numbers, that amounts to 19 people in Canada and approximately 1,000 in the U.S.
Despite the fact Parent saw what he described as a slight increase in fatal police shootings in Canada over the past 25 years — and a more noticeable increase over the past decade — he says the overall numbers demonstrate Canadian police, in general, remain reluc- tant to shoot.
But, given the recent increase in gun crime in some parts of the country — particularly Saskatchewan — the question is clear: Will the higher rates of gun crime and gun violence lead to an accompanying increase in shootings by Canadian officers?
Both the seizure and the use of firearms within Saskatchewan have risen sharply over the past few years. While reports of use of force by police in Regina and Saskatoon have gone up at the same time, fatal shootings of suspects by police did not increase accordingly.
According to statistics from the Saskatchewan Police Commission, fatal police shootings continue to sit mostly at the one or none level. In 2017, there was one fatal shooting, by RCMP. Of the four 2017 cases Mounties responded to in which they discharged firearms, three involved people shooting at police or civilians. Saskatoon police shot and killed an armed suspect in 2016. There were no fatal shootings in either 2015 or 2014. The year 2013 saw two fatal shootings, one in Prince Albert and one by RCMP. A number of other shootings resulted in nonfatal injury to suspects.
If the number of police-involved shootings hasn’t increased dramatically, the rate of gun-related crime certainly has.
“It is no longer just the big cities like Toronto and Vancouver that have all the gun violence,” Regina provincial court Judge James Rybchuk said in a case earlier this year. “It’s cities like Regina and Winnipeg that have the highest firearm-related violent crime rates in Canada.”
Officers on the front lines know that only too well.
“When I first came (onto the force) 28 years ago, the normal was knives,” says Supt. Darcy Koch with the Regina Police Service.
“The new normal for officers is to always be aware there could be a gun, because we’ve seen that in
Canadians are willing to take that pause for one or two seconds and check:
Is it really a gun or is it a weapon involved that I have to use my firearm? Whereas Americans are not willing in a lot of cases to take that chance for a variety of reasons. I could have shot him easily, but I didn’t for whatever reason. I don’t know why to this day.
the statistics that we’re seeing, and in the number of firearms we’re recovering, the number of firearms being used.”
Koch spent many years as a defensive tactics instructor, including in the use of firearms and other weapons. He’s also worked as a member of the SWAT unit, and has found himself in more than his share of tense situations.
But while he says his heart rate might have elevated in the 1990s over a situation involving knives, he points out officers now find themselves facing similar reactions over firearms.
“It’s there,” he says.
“It’s there all the time. Through a traffic stop, through a break and enter investigation, to an assault file to a robbery file to a home invasion file. Any file they’re taking now, it’s always there, and that’s really what’s changed in our environment. And I think our officers are doing a pretty good job.”
While police and affected families will rightly say even one policeinvolved shooting is one too many, the fact there hasn’t so far been an increase to correspond with skyrocketing gun crime numbers merits consideration.
The reason, police suggest, comes down — at least in large part — to training.
Sgt. Casey Ward, president of the Regina Police Association (also current SWAT team leader and former tactical recruit trainer at the Saskatchewan Police College), says recruits get 36 scenarios while in police college, including ones dealing with firearms and mental health.
“We do tactical training where someone pulls a gun,” he says. “A lot of the scenarios are based off of calls that officers have been to. But all those scenarios basically can be run with communication.
“On top of those scenarios, the officers do verbal judo ... more training in mental health, we get experts in from the Schizophrenia Society to talk about how to deal with those situations. So I think the training that the officers get in police college just better prepares them.”
He adds availability of tools like the Taser can also help save lives by giving police non-lethal options where circumstances allow. And the increased use of SWAT teams has also likely helped, as those members are better able to respond in a variety of ways, including through non-lethal tactics and negotiation.
Cpl. Rob King with the RCMP says members are trained, as they always have been, to “prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
“We still train people that whenever we’re going into a residence, there’s always a gun in the house until you prove otherwise,” he says. “So our training really hasn’t changed.”
Parent says one significant difference between Canadian and American police forces is training, along with recruitment. In Canada, police are trained to the same standard.
Likewise, recruiting practices and income are more or less the same.
Not so in the States, where significant differences might exist between large and small departments in terms of recruitment, training and pay.
“You can be in St. John’s or you can be in Saskatoon or B.C., and you’re going to have the same style of policing,” Parent says. “And I think what you’re seeing in Canada is that even though it’s not one police department ... they tend to look for people that they know will follow societal norms, such as being ethical, being in fairly good shape and then also having the ability to problem-solve (and) not using force unless absolutely necessary.”
One other crucial difference comes down to reaction.
“Canadians are willing to take that pause for one or two seconds and check: Is it really a gun or is it a weapon involved that I have to use my firearm?” says Parent.
“Whereas Americans are not willing in a lot of cases to take that chance for a variety of reasons.”
Training has evolved to better equip police to deal with people more likely to become involved in police shootings. Often, those are people suffering from mental illness or addictions. And police tactics — in cities, to deploy as many resources as possible to risky calls and, in rural areas, to give oneself time and distance where possible — are also used to lower the chances of tragic outcomes.
So far, numbers suggest a measure of success.
“I think a lot of that falls back on our training, that we still push — and we always have and we always will push — that de-escalation, that talking, that patience,” says King.
But, given the rise of guns and gun violence, will policing in Canada start to resemble that in America, where gun crime has been rampant for years?
Ward believes the potential is there for an increase in policeinvolved shootings, if one looks at numbers alone.
“Obviously if you see more firearms, the chance of something bad happening, the percentages do rise,” he says. “But I think also then, we’ve advanced our training. We’ve become more cognizant of more firearms on the street. You change the way that you deal with those situations, so it’s one of those things that we’re always trying to evolve our training throughout the province.”
Koch adds there are still significant differences between Canada and the U.S. — not just in terms of policing, but also the public’s attitude toward guns.
“In the States, there’s a perception of self-protection, that every citizen can arm themselves for protection, where in Canada, I think that idea has never really arrived here — and still, I would say to this day, is still not here,” he says. “We have a country which is built on good laws around firearms, good communication on that ... We’re just two really separate cultures in terms of firearms.”
Parent agrees cultural differences are key — both when explaining why our numbers have been lower, and why he believes they’ll stay that way, even in the wake of increasing gun crime.
In general, people in Canada — the public, the police and even many of those who come into contact with police — are not, by nature, lovers of violence. That attitude comes through in police who have shown a reluctance to shoot, and in those they deal with who — like the man Parent tangled with — are reluctant to shoot a police officer. “I give the kudos to society, to Canadians,” Parent says. “That’s the way we are ... Violence is going to happen once in a while, like we saw in Toronto. But we don’t glorify it and we try to find ways to minimize it.”