Traffic stops, street checks, proactive interactions have all been impacted and the resulting violent trend is what Ottawa has to deal with.
MATT SKOF, Ottawa Police Association president.
The loss of “street checks” as a policing tool and an understaffed force have stymied police efforts to hold gun offenders accountable in what’s been a violent start to the year, the head of the police union says.
“There has been a systemic failure at all levels of government here,” Ottawa Police Association president Matt Skof said Monday.
“From crippling legislation that prevents police from interacting with the public to politically motivated budget motions that have led to intentional understaffing — traffic stops, street checks, proactive interactions have all been impacted and the resulting violent trend is what Ottawa has to deal with,” he said.
An Ottawa Police Service report received by the police board Monday said that in 2017 after the new street check regulations were implemented — allowing officers only to ask for information when investigating a crime, suspicious activities, or gathering intelligence — Ottawa police officers asked for identifying information from people only five times, with only two of those requests qualifying as a “regulated interaction.”
The new laws were implemented to regulate “carding,” or street checks, which disproportionately saw racialized young men being stopped by police and asked for their personal information.
Police Chief Charles Bordeleau said the new regulations could be a factor in increased violence.
“It’s clear across the province there’s some anecdotal information that some would draw a parallel with the low number of interactions with a potential increase in street violence,” Bordeleau said. “We haven’t seen the evidence of that, but certainly we hear of that anecdotal information and we recognize that could be a factor. I think there’s many other factors.”
In 2015, Ottawa police conducted about 7,000 street checks. In 2016, about 4,000 were conducted. In 2017, there were four regulated interactions.
The numbers can’t easily be compared, said Deputy Chief Steve Bell at Monday’s police board meeting. What would have been a “street check” before the new laws — including observational information about suspicious vehicles, for example — may not currently meet the threshold of what’s considered an interaction with police that must be regulated.
“The law was implemented in 2017 and it changed the way our officers interacted and collected information with the public,” Bordeleau said. “The numbers across the province from all the police services are extremely low so the pendulum has swung, but it’s also clear that officers are required to collect that information and document it when they ask for a person’s personal identifiers, whether it’s their name, their address or their date of birth. This does not prevent officers from having regular interactions with any member of the public without asking their personal information.”
The legislation requires officers — when they have to ask for the information — to advise people at the same time of their rights and the avenues available to make a complaint. Bell called the law “clunky.” “It doesn’t flow naturally,” Bell said. “Beyond that, there is concern by officers about their exposure to the oversight system as they start to engage in the activity. All of those things put together have contributed to a drop in the number.”
In addressing staffing concerns, Bordeleau continued to say that the force has realigned officers to deal with the increase in gun violence and its associated criminal investigations. What was a “siloed approach” is now an “organizational effort.”
Bordeleau made clear that dealing with the 12 shootings to date this year — two of which resulted in the deaths of 23-year-old Tarek Dakhil and Adam Perron, 22 — is the force’s No. 1 priority.