Police shooting forces us to face inconvenient truths

A young man’s life came to a tragic end last week in Kitchener and it’s time to get serious about preventing similar tragedies.

A 31-year-old man was fatally shot by police who were responding to a call about a disturbance on Brybeck Crescent. The province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU), now in charge of determining what happened, reports officers “encountered a man holding an edged weapon.”

Our community is understandably troubled, and we won’t know the full details of what happened until the SIU concludes its investigation. But we do know some things for sure.

One is that when a call for help is made to police, we never want someone’s death to be the outcome. Another is that no police officer arrives at work with the idea this will be the day they fatally shoot someone. As a community, we must face some difficult, if not inconvenient truths.

Nine years ago, on that same street in Kitchener, another young man was shot dead by police. Beau Baker, 20, was in the throes of a mental health crisis and brandishing a knife when he was shot. Between that shooting in 2015 and the most recent last week, Waterloo Regional Police have responded to more than two million calls for service, none of them ending in a fatal shooting.

This should in no way diminish the impact of a life lost, especially at the hands of a service agency called for support. It does, however, provide important context around how the overwhelming majority of police interactions have different outcomes.

Over that same nine-year period, our mental health has deteriorated dramatically.

Statistics Canada reports the percentage of Canadians aged 15 and older who have a generalized anxiety disorder doubled over a decade. The study also found similar increases over the same period in people who reported a major depressive episode or bipolar disorders.

The availability of and access to mental health services has simply not kept pace. Instead, police are called for support, and nobody wants police being the first responders to a mental health crisis.

So, let’s talk about who should be responding to mental health calls. Let’s also talk about how those first responders are kept safe in the face of potential violence, and how others around them are also protected.

In Waterloo Region, the Integrated Mobile Police and Crisis Team pairs a police officer with a mental health worker to respond to calls. But there’s not enough funding to operate the service around-theclock, meaning police are often on their own.

As we build this capacity, let’s talk about how we want police to continue responding, since theirs will be the service called upon. Perhaps there are more effective, non-lethal options available.

There’s no time left to waste and no room for emotionally charged rhetoric that pits community members against each other.

Engaging in a meaningful and inclusive discussion around solutions requires that police are also at the table. Let’s get to work.

There’s no time left to waste and no room for emotionally charged rhetoric that pits community members against each other