Wearing pandemic-related gear not always possible when police answer calls

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is important to keep police safe when they respond to pandemic-related calls, but sometimes officers don’t have time to slip on PPE based on the situation.

The Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) has responded to 137 non-compliance calls since March 2020, with complaints coming in about excessive gatherings, large rallies, and people not wearing masks, Supt. Devon Oleniuk said during the April 13 Board of Police Commissioners meeting.

“We get a fair amount of those calls (about non-maskers) as well,” he remarked. The MJPS responded to 13 pandemic-related non-compliance calls in March 2021, and officers have responded to 38 such calls year-to-date, according to recent statistical data.

Officers usually have the time to put on PPE when responding to calls, but there are other situations where that’s not possible, Oleniuk continued. For example, police responded recently to a grocery store about a man not wearing a mask. That turned into a hands-on struggle between officers and the man, while there was a high possibility of transmission, especially with COVID-19 variants.

“This is an example where we didn’t have any time to PPE up because we were forced into action very quickly and had to deal with what was happening in front of us,” he added.

There are other occasions where officers engage in fights with people they are attempting to arrest, which happened recently and saw an officer knocked down, said Police Chief Rick Bourassa. No opportunity was possible to put on PPE then. However, police have time to slip on protective gear when responding to calls about dead people; this happened recently in a building known to be a hotspot for the coronavirus.

“These things run a whole range. We do have really, really rigid protocols around conducting ourselves properly around this pandemic and as safely as possible,” he continued. “But there are just so many situations where things happen quickly and our members try to be as safe as they can, but things just happen right in front of them.”

There have been reports in the news recently about anti-mask and anti-lockdown rallies becoming more violent and aggressive, said Commissioner Mary Lee Booth. She wondered if the MJPS was prepared for that possibility here.

Officers have not seen any of that behaviour during the rallies in Moose Jaw, replied Bourassa. There have not been as many large-scale events held here recently as there were in the past. The organization is unsure if it will see bigger rallies as the weather improves.

“We do watch that, we do monitor that, we do track the trends that are happening in other places, because we’re not an island — nothing happens in a vacuum,” he said. “We’re hopeful … that people will exercise their right to speak their minds (and) to gather together, but will continue to do so peacefully and in compliance with all the rules.”

The next Board of Police Commissioners meeting is on May 11.