Toronto police to double Taser arsenal
Board approves purchase despite concerns expressed by mental-health professionals
The Toronto Police Service will nearly double the number of Tasers in its arsenal after its civilian board approved a $950,000-request for more of the weapons — a move police say will reduce the likelihood of fatal encounters.
The approval came over the protests of members of the mental-health community, who stressed the still-unknown health impacts of conducted energy weapons (CEW), particularly on those with addiction and mental-health challenges.
The decision was one of many on a packed agenda at the board meeting Thursday, which plowed ahead while overshadowed by the release earlier in the day of an unfavourable poll by the Toronto Police Association showing apparent discontent in the ranks.
A so-called “non-confidence vote” held by the union found that 86 per cent of officers polled said they did not have confidence in Chief Mark Saunders’ leadership.
Participation in the vote, however, was less than half of the 7,300 association members, which includes uniform cops and civilians, but not senior officers (anyone above the inspector rank).
The vote is also a wholly symbolic gesture, as the police chief is hired and employed by the Toronto Police Services Board.
Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association, said the chief and the board, nonetheless, must listen to more than 2,600 people saying “we’ve lost confidence. We feel that the direc- tion’s wrong.”
“You can’t dismiss that. It’s coming from our members,” McCormack said.
The “vote” came after months of the union raising concerns about staffing levels, claiming that changes made as part of Toronto police’s continuing efforts to modernize the force have resulted in slow response times and low morale.
In response to the vote, Toronto police board chairperson Andy Pringle read out a statement on behalf of board members at the onset of the meeting, stressing its “full and unequivocal” support for Saunders.
“We understand that they strongly prefer the status quo. The TPA has been invited to the table and we have sought its input from the outset,” Pringle said.
The message was echoed by Mayor John Tory, a member of the police board, who said that anyone in any position of leadership is always going to face criticism.
“This is the kind of thing that can happen when you are trying to bring about change. There are people who are unsettled by that change,” Tory told reporters after the meeting.
Saunders said he was “taking everything in context,” noting to reporters that it was an election year for the Toronto police union.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s important that I do listen to the voices and concerns of the members,” Saunders said after the board meeting. “(The vote) hasn’t changed anything; I continue to listen. I always have and always will.”
But Saunders said he will keep moving forward with modernization efforts within the service, which include changes to officer deployment and staffing levels, although 80 new recruits have been hired. Two recent demands made by the Toronto police union were in fact acted upon at the police board meeting Thursday: a move to equip more front line officers with naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, and the decision to buy 400 Tasers.
The Taser purchase brings the number of the weapons owned by the service to about 900.
Toronto police deputy chief Barbara McLean stressed to board members that officers will continue to be trained to make de-escalation their first option during tense encounters. But she said there was a “gap” in the tools provided to officers.
“We believe that it is a tool that has the potential to save lives,” McLean said.
The board, however, heard from members of the public and mentalhealth groups concerned about the purchase, particularly when the impact of Tasers on the health of people in crisis are not understood.
“Police services should limit their use of (Tasers) to situations where the only alternative would be the use of deadly force. (Tasers) should only be the used as a last resort and after all other de-escalation techniques have proven unsuccessful,” wrote Steve Lurie and Camille Quenneville, with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), in a letter to the board.
Uppala Chandrasekera, the newest member of the board and the director of policy and planning at CMHA, said she could not support the expansion of Tasers, saying it could undo some of Toronto police’s good work.
“I think moving in this direction is going to lose a lot of trust with the mental-health community,” she said.
The board demanded changes to how it oversees Tasers, upping the number of usage reports from annual to quarterly reports. Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca