Deputy chief’s advice should be heeded

Re ‘Biggest transformation’ facing force, Jan. 25 Deputy Chief Peter Sloly is correct in stating that savings in the police budget are possible. I don’t necessarily agree with eliminating officers, but using them more efficiently would lessen the need to add more officers, and possibly free up some officers for foot-patrol duty.

For example, when there is a fire, we usually see two or maybe three fire engines at the scene unless it is a multiple-alarm fire. On the other hand, when there is a crime scene we usually see multiple police cruisers.

I can understand that the initial response warrants that police get to the scene as quickly as possible but why then, after the crime scene has been secured by taping off the area, do so many cruisers have to remain on site?

When there are more than two or three cruisers (possibly four to six officers) remaining, as far as I’m concerned, that is a complete waste of manpower. Warren Dalton, Scarborough Edward Keenan says that carding “has led black Torontonians to ugly conclu- sions.” Not just black citizens. I am lily white, and every day I am on the streets, I watch members of our bloated, overpaid, bullying police force who cannot find the energy to do the most basic parts of their jobs — the kind of policing that makes our city a more livable place.

I regularly encounter vehicles parked on sidewalks or in bike lanes, or blocking traffic. I have flagged down passing cops and asked them to ticket the offender, only to be blown off by fatuous excuses as to why they can’t do their job.

What is the point of the city and the province enacting new laws if our cops take upon themselves the power to ignore laws at their personal discretion?

Where is the command structure on those issues? By exercising this sort of capricious personal discretion, officers are depriving the city of major revenues, which must then be made up by digging deeper into taxpayers’ pockets.

Thank you to Peter Sloly, the chief that should have been, for speaking out: a complete structural rebuild of the TPS is long overdue. Jim Conchie, Toronto