City police department runs into obstacles

New federal rules slowing down efforts to train Charlottetown officers

Some members of Charlottetown Police Services haven’t been getting trained on carbine rifles as quickly as originally thought.

Back in January, The Guardian reported that the police agency had taken possession of 10 of the rifles, which came at no cost to the city.

However, the force would have to pay for things like training, ammunition, slings for the weapons and equipment so they can be placed in the police cruisers.

Now, due to changing federal government regulations, the force has to pay to use the site where members have been training to use the weapons — the Alexandra rifle range.

Training at the site used to be free.

“We have some members trained, however, we have run into some obstacles with access to training facilities,’’ says Deputy Police Chief Brad McConnell, “(with) one of the obstacles being the Treasury Board of Canada (which) decided to bill non-government agencies for use of their facilities, like the range in Alexandra.’’

McConnell said when the Treasury Board decided to start charging a fee it created another obstacle when it came to training the officers.

“We had to develop contracts that we have yet to receive that allow us to utilize those facilities . . . . Plus, there are maintenance issues with the range also.’’

McConnell won’t say how many of the Charlottetown Police Services members have been trained so far, other than to say “several have been’’. Some of the city’s cruisers have already been outfitted with the rifle.

“Training is ongoing, so as facilities become available we will continue our training and, eventually, all members will be trained.’’

McConnell also didn’t say how much using the range will cost the city force.

“There’s been certain changes from the Treasury Board’s perspective, so that now we will pay fair market value for the use of the range, which is no problem from our perspective. We’re happy to do that.’’

McConnell said there’s nothing the force can do about the paperwork required now.

“Our time table is certainly of no consequence to Treasury Board.”

McConnell noted that the new regulations aren’t the only cause for delay in the training. Access to proper mounting equipment and secure vehicle mounting provided a little delay.

“But (all necessary equipment has) been acquired, so it’s really (now) the access to the range.’’

As for the cost of the rifles, The Guardian has reported in the past it would cost the city between $15,000 and $20,000 to equip each of the police vehicles with a rifle. The rifle runs about $2,500, and there are between six and eight vehicles on the streets of Charlottetown on any given shift. There has been a major push on by police agencies to arm themselves with carbines since the Moncton shooting in June 2014, where three RCMP officers were shot to death and two others injured by a man armed with a rifle.