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27 September 2013

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BRITISH COLUMBIA ...... 4 Victoria-Esquimalt harmony first step in police regionalization: mayor ...... 4 Mayor and police board dismiss DTES complaint of discriminatory ticketing ...... 5 Leaked report maps out how a single police force for region might work ...... 9 ALBERTA ...... 10 Medicine Hat’s police second-highest paid in the country ...... 10 Calgary police consult Crown over possible charges in sovereign citizen dispute ...... 11 RCMP celebrate 100 years in Wood Buffalo region ...... 13 Use-of-force incidents by Edmonton police continue to drop ...... 14 A fine response to bullies ...... 15 SASKATCHEWAN ...... 17 Frustration evident over crime numbers: Grabinsky ...... 17 Corman Park police board fires chief ...... 18 Regina red light cameras bring in big bucks ...... 19 Police fight racism with charity run ...... 20 MANITOBA ...... 21 ONTARIO ...... 21 Sudbury's police chief tapped for top job Victoria ...... 21 Police board reappoints Carl Nicholson ...... 23 Final submissions in / Stirling Rawdon Police Board matter ...... 24 Police chief explains process of paying informants ...... 27 Toronto police chief eager to collaborate with Ontario’s incoming SIU head ...... 28 Departing SIU head Ian Scott still fighting for police accountability ...... 29 Tasers for Toronto police raise concerns in the community ...... 32 Challenge police on human rights ...... 33 Program to keep young people away from gangs announced in Dorset Park ...... 34 Police watchdog exonerates Ottawa officers in man’s death ...... 35 Other chiefs would have acted sooner ...... 36 Commentary: Council gains upper hand amid shifting sands of police board ...... 38 Arbitration, tax assessments crunch Region budget ...... 40 Port Colborne cop shop may close ...... 42 QUEBEC ...... 44 Federal judge denies request to destroy Quebec’s gun registry data ...... 44 Student protests: Montreal police chief Marc Parent defends department’s action ...... 45 New police chief vows to push out organized crime ...... 47 NEW BRUNSWICK ...... 48 NOVA SCOTIA ...... 48 Judge quashes nine police informations ...... 48 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND ...... 50 Police pay tribute to fallen officers who died on duty ...... 50 NEWFOUNDLAND ...... 51 NATIONAL ...... 51 Commissioner Sued Again ...... 51 Feds deny plans to reintroduce lawful access legislation ...... 52 Drug-sniffing dog searches to be clarified by Supreme Court ...... 55

2 INTERNATIONAL NEWS ...... 56 The Record: County police merger: Jonah in the whale ...... 56 Surat police's Setu mobile app a hit in floods ...... 57 Policing & Crime Prevention ...... 58 Toward improved police community relations ...... 58 Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis resigns ...... 59 Las Vegas Police Protective Association wins raises in arbitration ...... 61 Arbitrator: Chicago cops owed $1 million for NATO summit OT ...... 63 Raising the public’s confidence in police ...... 65 Predicting the Epicenter of Crime: Analytics Tool Cuts Crime Rates ...... 66 Boston’s Police Chief Plans to Step Aside ...... 68 How Would Native Americans Have Rated the Police (If They’d Been Asked)? ...... 70 Police experts dig into the new policies for Seattle cops ...... 71 Poll: Gun violence, mental illness connected ...... 73 Terrorism, cyber crime and budget woes face new FBI director ...... 74 Law officers push for preschool as crime prevention tool ...... 76 Police pay may entangle candidates ...... 77 Detroit manager seeks to freeze pension plans ...... 79 What Will a Police Officer Do in Weston High School? ...... 81 Online policing: Service must address borderless threat ...... 83 U.S. Jails, Filled With Mentally Ill, Are the 'New Asylums' ...... 85 New Baton Rouge Chief Wants His Cops to Talk Nice ...... 86 How Street Stops Influence Police Legitimacy ...... 87

3 BRITISH COLUMBIA

Victoria-Esquimalt harmony first step in police regionalization: mayor KATIE DEROSA / TIMES COLONIST SEPTEMBER 20, 2013 The Victoria Police Department needs to fix its broken relationship with Esquimalt before it can convince Greater Victoria mayors and citizens that a single department is viable, officials in Saanich and Esquimalt said in response to a leaked VicPD regionalization report.

“I’ve always said that if we can get our house in order in terms of Victoria and Esquimalt, then we are a model for those naysayers to look and say, ‘Yes, they can make it work,’ ” said Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, who has read Victoria police’s regionalization report, which was leaked to the Times Colonist.

Since the forced merger between Victoria and Esquimalt police in 2003, the Township of Esquimalt has complained that it pays more for policing and gets less service. Residents have also said the focus on community policing has been lost.

In 2012, Esquimalt said it wanted to ditch Victoria police in favour of a standalone RCMP detachment, thereby creating an eighth police department in the region. The province quashed that plan and sent in a mediator to help repair the relationship.

“People have come to me and said they want to amalgamate seven different policing agencies in the capital region and they can’t even sort out what’s happening between themselves and Esquimalt,” said Saanich police Chief Mike Chadwick. “It’s not a secret out there. People are watching very closely how that’s been handled.”

Chadwick stressed that he would not comment on the report itself but was speaking generally on the topic of regionalization. He said the current model of specialized integrated units is a better way for the seven departments to work together than being forced to amalgamate.

Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen said it’s outside the jurisdiction of the Victoria police board to be making recommendations on the services provided by other departments.

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin, who chairs the police board, said it would be inappropriate to comment on a report that was presented to the board in private.

“In general, the Victoria police board has endorsed trying to create the safest region within Canada as one of our strategic plans by 2020, so this is something

4 that has arisen as a result of consultation with our citizens, business community and others,” Fortin said.

Police chiefs in the region last week agreed on a more standardized funding formula for integrated units, such as the region’s traffic team or homicide investigation unit, Central Saanich deputy chief Les Sylven said.

The formula — based on population, number of officers, calls for service and the municipality’s property value — is designed to eliminate confusion around how departments commit resources to the integrated units, he said.

But this doesn’t force departments to co-operate or participate in an integrated unit.

For example, Victoria police pulled out of the Regional Crime Unit in 2009 and has set up its own team to target prolific offenders.

The province’s police services division is currently looking at how to improve integration among police departments in Greater Victoria and is set to discuss its recommendation with the region’s mayors this fall. Mayor and police board dismiss DTES complaint of discriminatory ticketing BY MARIA WALLSTAM AND NATHAN CROMPTON ON SEPTEMBER 25, 2013 The Mainlander

Last week the Vancouver Police Board voted to dismiss a joint complaint filed in March 2013 by VANDU (Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users) and Pivot Legal Society. The complaint was based on a freedom of information request revealing that up to 95% of Vancouver’s vending by-law tickets are given out in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).

Pivot and VANDU called on the police to implement the recommendations of the Murdered and Missing Women’s Inquiry, which called on the VPD stop the disproportionate ticketing of poor, homeless, and under-housed residents in the DTES.

Immediately after the Mayor’s decision, PIVOT announced that it will be filing an appeal with Office of Police Complaints Commission. PIVOT and VANDU will also continue with their constitutional challenge against the City’s vending by-law. According to Pivot lawyer Doug King, the challenge will be heard in the courts next Spring, 2014.

On Tuesday, September 17th, a delegation of 45 members from VANDU appeared at the Police Board meeting to deliver their testimony. Laura Shaver, Vice-President of VANDU, called on the Mayor and Police Board to reject the practice of targeted ticketing in the DTES. The board and the public also heard a testimony from Louise Lagimodiere, a 70-year old Indigenous woman who is

5 currently facing two tickets for vending in the DTES. “I do vending because I need money to survive,” she told the room of supporters.

Before the decision, VANDU president David Hamm told Basics News, “Most people in our neighbourhood don’t have yards. We are very poor people, trying to survive in really difficult economic times and we are being criminalized for it. If this was really about stolen goods or drug dealing, as the police claim, there are laws on the books to deal with those issues. For us it seems like they are just criminalizing poor people trying to survive.”

Numbers whitewashed

The VPD’s report to the Vancouver Police Board dismisses the Pivot/VANDU complaint on the grounds that the data in the FOI (freedom of information) request from this past March contained a “methodological error.” The report claims that new data extraction methodology (termed the “wildcard” method) is more accurate than the numbers previously released.

The main conclusion, based on the new data extraction, is that the number of by- law tickets given out in the DTES has decreased since 2008. At a first glance, the interpretation gives reason for relief. A closer scrutiny shows that the conclusions are based on selective interpretation of the statistics. The majority of the data comparisons use 2008 as a base-year, even though it is well known that 2008 was an exceptional ticketing year with a pre-Olympic ticketing blitz in December. Between 2007 and 2008, the number of tickets given out in the DTES doubled.[1] The relative change in the number of tickets issued would be almost non-existent if an average ticket year was used instead of 2008 (such as 2007 or 2009). Using the highest year as a base-year for comparison is a common and easily- recognizable manipulation of statistics.

VANDU members added that the VPD’s analysis or conclusions does not in any way address the proportion of tickets given out in the DTES relative to the rest of the city. The Mayor and VPD’s dismissal of the complaint was justified on the basis that it is reasonable for more tickets to be given out in the DTES because the neighborhood has the highest concentration of police, including a dedicated foot patrol. Page 8 of the report reads: “[I]t is reasonable to assume that more offences such as jaywalking or street vending will be observed if there are more officers walking on the street in a concentrated area.”

Traffic accidents — natural or preventable?

According to the latest statistics from the VPD, the DTES still has the highest number of pedestrians struck per square kilometer. The report comments that the high proportion of traffic accidents is a natural phenomenon: “Anyone who has visited the DTES can observe that the behaviour of jaywalkers is markedly different than typically seen in other areas, in terms of the complete lack of caution in wandering into traffic mid-block or against a red light in the most

6 unsafe manner, despite the proximity of marked crosswalks and controlled intersections.”

This reasoning was also prominent in the VPD’s public position against the 30km speed zone along Hastings. Since then the speed limit has been introduced by the City thanks to the activism of VANDU in their years-long struggle for improved pedestrian safety and against the criminalization of jaywalkers. Pedestrian traffic incidents have decreased as a result, but a lot of work remains to be done, according to Dave Hamm.

VANDU members argued that traffic and pedestrian safety measures contained in the final report of VANDU’s City-funded Pedestrian Safety Project have not been fully implemented. In her speech to the police board, Laura Shaver stated the new speed-reader installed at Gore and Hastings regularly shows cars driving faster than the posted limit. “The police are spending so much time on vending and jaywalking tickets that they forgot to enforce the speed limits on the cars that are hitting and killing people.”

Disproportionately ticketing the poor

The joint VANDU and Pivot complaint was concerned not only with the absolute number of tickets issued, but with the disproportionate ticketing of DTES residents relative to the rest of the city. The VPD’s “enhanced” data validates this complaint of systemic discrimination, confirming that an inordinately disproportionate number of tickets are still given out in the DTES.

The disproportionate ticketing of the low-income community is further apparent when looking at the number of tickets given out in the relatively small Beat Enforcement Team (BET) area in the heart of the DTES. The BET area stretches along the Hastings corridor between Gore and Cambie. The report claims that street vending by-law tickets have decreased by 16% in the BET when compared to 2008, and that jaywalking tickets decreased by 57% when compared to the number written in the BET patrolled area in 2008. But yet the report fails to make any analysis or defence of the city-wide proportion of the number of tickets issued.

Both the proportion and absolute number of jay-walking and street vending tickets shows that the percentage of tickets given out in the BET has been steady and high since 2008. On average, 68% of jaywalking tickets and a staggering 92% of street vending tickets have been given out in the BET area between 2008 and 2012. This significant differential in tickets points to blatant discriminatory practices that the VPD and Robertson show no interest in addressing directly.

In terms of absolute numbers, the new data reaffirms that 2008 was an exceptional ticketing year in the BET area, with over 600 tickets given out that year after a December ticketing blitz. Since 2009, there has been an average of 300 jaywalking tickets per year in the BET. Compare this to the average of 11 jaywalking tickets per year (2008-2012) in district 3, or the average of 7

7 jaywalking tickets have been given out per year (2008-2012) in the rest of East Vancouver (excluding DTES).

With regard to pan-handling tickets, the report states that “only 9% of all panhandling tickets have been issued in the BET area in 5.5 years.” This statistic is not surprising and should not be a cause for celebration, given that most pan- handlers who live in the DTES do not panhandle in the DTES. Most panhandlers leave the neighbourhood when they panhandle. Panhandling tickets are always discriminatory regardless of where they are given. The Cromwell-era panhandling bylaw, which allows for fines up to $2,000, specifically targets homeless and poor people who have to resort to begging for survival.[2]

The data on panhandling tickets is based on the number of tickets given under the provincial Safe Streets Act and excludes tickets given under the municipal street and safety bylaw. As a result, the data used by the VPD may be a significant underestimate of the number of panhandling tickets given in the City of Vancouver each year. This points to a larger issue of police discretion, given the complex web of provincial and municipal bylaws granting police nearly unchecked discretion in managing ‘street disorder.’ The concern, as VPD constable Gil Pruder put it, is that unchecked police discretion can turn anything, including “contempt of cop,” into a punishable offense.

Evidence against criminalization

The VPD claims that the purpose of by-law enforcement is to “change behaviour that puts people at risk.” In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, city councillor Kerry Jang maintains that “the tickets remain an important educational tool for police to try to change dangerous behaviour.” This kind of regressive logic obscures the socio-economic reasons for street vending, jaywalking and panhandling.

In response to the VPD board dismissal, Aiyanas Ormond, who also spoke on behalf of VANDU, called for an evidence-based approach to public health and by-law enforcement in the DTES. “We have been asking for evidence since 2009, which means that four years have passed with no evidence-based indicators that jaywalking tickets reduce incidences of jaywalking,” according to Ormond. “There are numerous evidence-based approaches that still have not yet been implemented.”

The majority of tickets that have been handed out in the last four years have had significant negative impacts on the lives of those targeted. In addition to being forced through extended court procedures, the tickets have made it harder for people to get loans, set up phone plans, renew drivers licenses, and get car insurance, among other things. By-law ticketing also expands police contacts with the residents of the DTES, increasing the opportunity for racial and class based profiling, leaving many residents to feel they live under constant police surveillance. Similar to other “stop and frisk” policies the world over, targeted policing leads to increased police searches, increasing arrests in the community, and the criminalization of residents.

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Leaked report maps out how a single police force for region might work KATIE DEROSA / TIMES COLONIST SEPTEMBER 20, 2013 A special Victoria police committee has sketched a framework for one Greater Victoria police force, as the department pushes ahead with its regionalization goals despite resistance from other departments.

“Southern Vancouver Island is home to one of the last remaining examples of ‘patchwork’ policing models in Canada … policed by a combination of municipal departments, RCMP detachments and several integrated units,” said the report, leaked to the Times Colonist.

“This structure of delivering policing services is not only inefficient, it jeopardizes public safety.”

The report, which was presented to the Victoria police board in camera earlier this month, divides the region into four districts and details how police resources would be redeployed.

The biggest change is that policing of Oak Bay would be split in two, the southern half covered by district one, which includes Victoria and Esquimalt, and the northern portion covered by district two, which includes Saanich.

The Saanich Peninsula, which includes Sidney, North Saanich and Central Saanich, would have fewer patrol officers while more units would be deployed in downtown Victoria. It would also eliminate the RCMP in Greater Victoria.

The total number of police officers would drop from 532 to 508. There would be five additional major crime detectives and 14 fewer traffic cops because it would eliminate the 10 traffic officers from the Integrated Road Safety Unit. The deployment numbers would not take into account part-time teams, such as the emergency response team, crowd management unit, dive team, marine response unit and explosive disposal unit, which would be drawn from patrol resources, as is the case now.

The report said all existing public safety buildings, such as the detachment headquarters, would be used.

Authored by four officers — Sgt. Lesley Watson, constables Allison Johnson, Mike Massine and Phil DiBattista — and a civilian, Alex Rutherford, the report is set to be released publicly at October’s police board meeting.

Victoria police have long lobbied for a single force, saying it’s unfair that they shoulder the burden of policing the downtown core, the region’s entertainment and crime hub.

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A regional police force is the primary goal of the department’s strategic plan to have the “safest region” by 2020.

Several reports and inquests have questioned the effectiveness of having seven police departments patrol a population of 340,000.

The coroner’s inquest into the Peter Lee murder-suicide in September 2007 found there was a disjointed response and communication breakdown that could have been avoided if all departments were working across boundaries as one unit.

Since the mid-1950s, most cities across Canada have consolidated police forces into one regional department, the report said.

In Ontario, the government set minimum standards for departments, forcing smaller departments to join larger ones.

ALBERTA Medicine Hat’s police second-highest paid in the country

By Alex Mccuaig on September 20, 2013. Medicine Hat News

City council’s unanimous approval of a new police contract puts Medicine Hat police near the top of the table in wages compared to other municipalities in the country.

The one-year contract retroactive to Jan. 1, 2013 and which will expire in three months, will see a city first-class constable receive an estimated $90,013 annual wage, not including overtime or benefits.

Mayor Norm Boucher said the wage reflects the city’s policy to pay city cops the provincial average for law enforcement jobs in Alberta and is reflective of the stresses police deal with on a day-to-day basis.

He highlighted that while Medicine Hat’s wage may seem high compared to other jurisdictions, once those contracts are updated those respective services will be caught up.

“They’re a year behind. You can’t compare,” said Boucher.

10 “If you are catching them at the end of their contract and when they renegotiate, it will probably go higher.”

The mayor said the reason for the short term of the contract which expires on Dec. 31 may lie in the police association seeing negotiation advantages for future contracts.

“They think the contracts will be going up quite a bit next year so they’ll sit on it, they’ll wait for other ones (to settle) and start to negotiate to follow suit,” said Boucher.

Ald. Phil Turnbull called that tactic “leapfrogging” and said he voted for the contract to avoid a provincial arbitration process he called “broken.”

“The only reason I supported it was the same reason I supported it last time,” said Turnbull.

“When you can’t negotiate a deal without them going or threatening to go and I’m not saying they threatened to go to binding arbitration who knows what you get there?”

Turnbull said the Province needs to step in and fix the arbitration system in Alberta “so we have a decent way to settle our differences and not be forced upon.”

Police commission member Ald. Ted Clugston said the public has to take into consideration Alberta as a whole has the highest-paid employees in a range of occupations, police being just one.

Clugston said while larger centres may have larger issues requiring police attention, Medicine Hat has a “no-call-is-too-small” policy.

“In Medicine Hat, if someone spray-paints graffiti on your garage, our guys will come.”

Calgary police consult Crown over possible charges in sovereign citizen dispute

BY BILL GRAVELAND, THE CANADIAN PRESS SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

CALGARY - Calgary police say they will consult with the Crown on whether they can get involved in a two-year dispute between an Alberta pensioner and the man she says has claimed her rental property as a sovereign "embassy."

Rebekah Caverhill says she has been billed for renovations the man did inside the home and that he had a lien placed on the property.

11

Caverhill says the man, Andreas Pirelli, called himself a "Freemen-on-the-Land," is only paying about half the rent, and has already ignored one eviction notice.

Police initially referred Caverhill to the civil courts, but Acting Insp. Julien Gagne now says officers are consulting with Crown prosecutors to see if there are any criminal charges that can be laid.

"We've been providing her guidance as to what actions to take regarding the civil portion of her matter," said Gagne. "We're also consulting with the Crown prosecutors office to determine if there's anything criminal stemming from the overarching interactions and involvement with our alleged offender."

Gagne said it is unlikely charges will be laid, but investigators want to make sure.

Gagne said so-called sovereign citizens haven't been as serious a problem in Canada as they have been in the United States, but he does note there is a mandatory training course about the movement that all Calgary police officers are required to take.

"It's basically a training module on identifying who they are and what ideologies they follow. It's basically about officer safety based on what's happened in the past south of the border," said Gagne, adding police are keeping a close eye on the movement.

"We're monitoring to make sure it doesn't become as big a problem as it has been in the United States and obviously we work with our partner agencies south of the border as well to help us gauge the trends," he said.

"We're not seeing that really being a huge issue for us right now."

The Canadian Press sought comment from Pirelli on the possibility of charges, but he didn't immediately respond to an email.

He responded to Caverhill's initial allegations with a warning that he has trademark claims on the name "Andreas Pirelli" and "The First Nations Sovran Embassy of Earth."

The Law Society of British Columbia and B.C. Notaries have both issued warnings about Freemen. In a bulletin last year, the society said the group may number as many as 30,000 in Canada.

RCMP and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police are developing awareness materials for frontline officers and the movement is the subject of upcoming policing seminars in Vancouver and Toronto.

The FBI considers the movement a domestic terror threat in the U.S. but a Freemen-on-the-Land spokesman told The Canadian Press earlier this month that violence is not advocated and has no place in the movement.

12 RCMP celebrate 100 years in Wood Buffalo region

By Amanda Richardson Sunday, September 22, 2013 7:38:57 MDT PM Fort McMurray Today.com

RCMP celebrated 100 years in the region this weekend, making history along the way.

Saturday, for the first time ever, Wood Buffalo RCMP were granted Freedom to the City cordoning off a section of Franklin Avenue in front of the Jubilee Centre where the parade was held. A number of RCMP officials spoke, as well as Mayor Melissa Blake, who officially bestowed the Freedom of the City on the policing organization.

“Back many, many years ago, traditionally military forces weren’t allowed within the city establishment,” explained Supt. Bob Couture. “They were, in times of war, used to conquer areas, but they weren’t trusted by the municipality.

“When there came a time when the military forces were trusted and became a part of the community, the community would invite them into the city, giving them the opportunity to express their Freedom of the City. The Freedom of the City to march with arms beared, fixed bayonets, drums-a-beating. So the military force became part of the community and they were free to work and live within the community.”

Couture says the centennial celebrations have provided the perfect opportunity for the RCMP force to interact with the community and show residents what kind of impact the Mounties have in Wood Buffalo, adding that it’s also an “incredible opportunity” for the RCMP to display the Guidon and get out and about in their traditional red surge.

“It’s a pretty significant milestone when you look at Canadian history. We have a lot of history in our country, but for us to establish a footprint in this community — a permanent detachment office that’s lasted over 100 years — it’s a significant milestone,” said Couture.

“The community is the police; the police is the community, and when citizens come out and support what the police officers are doing in our community, it gives you an absolutely fantastic feeling.”

But more than just a home base for RCMP, the detachment grew from other policing groups, including the Northwest Mounted Police, the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, the Alberta Provincial Police Service, Fort McMurray Police Department, and now Bylaw Services and Alberta Sheriffs.

13 “It’s a tapestry of history. And if we look back at what’s taken place in this community in 100 years, we look at where we want to be 100 years from now,” he said.

Use-of-force incidents by Edmonton police continue to drop

BY JANA G. PRUDEN, EDMONTON JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

EDMONTON - Police use-of-force incidents have fallen significantly in Edmonton in recent years, according to a report tendered at meeting of the city’s police commission on Thursday evening.

Acting Insp. Tom Farquhar told the commission 943 use of force incidents took place in 2013, down from 978 in 2012.

Of the 943 incidents, 557 were more serious “Category 2” incidents. That’s less than half the number of such incidents five years ago, when the city saw 1,134 Category 2 incidents. The numbers have been falling since; in 2009, there were 919 incidents, and by 2012, 603.

This year’s decrease comes despite a significant rise in the overall number of police calls, which rose to 116,403 in 2013 from 112,586 the year before.

Farquhar said he attributes the drop in use of force incidents to more specialized training and education, as well as good recruiting, a practice of daily debriefings for officers, and an overall maturing in the workforce.

He said Edmonton police are now given significant training in dealing with people with mental health issues, and the organization has adopted a “reasonable officer” model, where police are taught to think about the potential approaches to each situation before they go in, and consider the context of the scene.

Farquhar said an emphasis on supervisory oversight throughout an incident is also having an effect.

Police commission members lauded the decrease in use-of-force incidents, but Farquhar said the number is expected now to gradually plateau — or even increase -— from its current level.

He said that’s because officers are still expected to use force when it is justified and lawful, and done to protect the public.

“We’re not trying to get the numbers down,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure the numbers are justified.”

14 Calls involving use of force by police dogs were up slightly, with 21 incidents in 2013 compared to 17 the previous year.

A fine response to bullies

Anti-bullying bylaw empowers RCMP in Alberta town

By Mallory Procunier

RCMP members in Hanna, Alta., now have a way to protect victims of bullying and penalize their aggressors without giving them a criminal record.

Through the power of an anti-bullying bylaw that was enacted in November 2012, the RCMP in Hanna can now issue a ticket, ranging from $250 for the first offence to $1,000 for the second, to someone who is bullying someone else.

Even a bystander or someone who is encouraging the emotional, verbal or physical harassment can be fined $100.

Borrowing best practices

Cst. Jennifer Brewer worked hard to help the town council pass the bylaw after receiving a number of bullying complaints not long after she was transferred to Hanna.

“I was getting stopped in the street by people asking what I was going to do about the bullying in the school or at the playground or the pool,” Brewer says.

Brewer says children as young as 10 years old were reporting instances of bullying, but she couldn’t do much because her powers as a police officer were limited.

“Unfortunately, in some of these cases, I couldn’t do anything more than sit down with the aggressor and the victim and do a mediation session and of course they don’t always work,” Brewer says.

She then researched solutions and found out that two other Alberta towns — Oyen and Consort — had enacted anti-bullying bylaws that gave police more power against bullies.

Brewer proposed the idea to Hanna’s town council and two months later, it was law.

“I’m glad the RCMP took the initiative to bring the problem and the solution, more than anything, to our attention and I really applaud that,” says Hanna’s mayor, Mark Nikota, who helped pass the bylaw.

15 Now, Brewer can issue a ticket to an aggressor, whether he or she is 13 or 93 — because it’s not only youth bullying that’s on the RCMP’s radar.

“The reasons we don’t get adult complaints often is that, a lot of times, they’ll be at the bar where they’ll end up seeing their aggressor and get into a bar fight and deal with everything,” Brewer says. “I have had some adults say this bylaw could have saved them a broken hand.”

Spreading the word

Kelly Lewis, Vice Principal at J.C. Charyk Hanna School, says that since the bylaw has been in effect, he hasn’t seen a big impact at the school. But he says he has noticed a different attitude among the youth in terms of what bullying is.

He credits Brewer’s in-school awareness presentations on bullying and cyberbullying that are teaching the students what bullying is, what its effects can be and what the consequences are.

“I think they were shocked by how comments on Facebook could get you in trouble,” Lewis says. “They think it’s all in fun because they didn’t touch anybody but once it’s on the World Wide Web, it could be found and things could happen.”

Since November, Brewer says she hasn’t had to issue a single ticket, which she says is a sign that the education sessions are working.

“By having these little sessions, they clue in to what can be hurtful,” Brewer says. “In my opinion, if we can go without issuing a ticket or without having to even make mention of it, it’s going to be successful.”

Fear no more

Brewer says that the youth in Hanna now feel comforted to know that the police have a way of protecting them — even if he or she is the aggressor.

“Aggressors no longer have that fear of a criminal charge right off the bat,” Brewer says. “We’re able to keep those people that may otherwise not have a criminal record from getting one.”

And although she feels a bit overwhelmed from the attention the town’s received because of the bylaw, she’s happy to know she’s made a difference.

“It makes me feel good to know I’ve done something that can help the community so that when I go, there is something here that can help the kids and adults that are being harassed,” Brewer says.

16 SASKATCHEWAN Frustration evident over crime numbers: Grabinsky The Battlefords News Optimist September 26, 2013 By John Cairns Staff Reporter Dissatisfaction over the city’s high crime numbers has been made known to the local RCMP.

Acting detachment commander Sgt. Kurt Grabinsky, in his presentation of the Battlefords detachment statistical report for August Monday, acknowledged “the community has been expressing a lot of frustration through August as well as September with the crime statistics severity index, as well as the overall crime that has been happening in the community.”

But he noted that in calls for service, “we are, on average, no greater than usual, but we are dealing with Facebook and social media which carries a lot of weight in the public.”

Grabinsky said they have full respect for the information that comes from that and they investigate where we can, but “our calls for service are no greater than normal.”

There were 1,293 calls for service in August overall, compared to 1,520 for the same month in 2012. For the year there have been 9,940 calls for service compared to 10,617 last year.

As for the rest of the report for August, there was not much change in the numbers in most categories. The only major uptick noted was in property offences that saw 305 in August, up from 259 the previous year.

Compared to the same month in 2012, in August there were person offences were at 76 (up two from August 2012), one business break and enter (down one), 20 residential break and enters (same), 224 Criminal Code offences (down 19), 22 drug offences (down 10) 25 Liquor Acts (down 19) and 28 impaired operation of a motor vehicle (up six).

As for trends for the year, person offenses are up four per cent, business break and enters up 33 per cent, residential break and enters up 23 per cent, property offences up 13 per cent, criminal code offences down 13 per cent, drug offences down 33 per cent, liquor acts offences up 20 per cent, and impaired operation of a motor vehicle up 15 per cent.

Grabinsky noted the RCMP has been interacting with different community groups over the recent property crime as well as the shootings.

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He also noted bike patrols were active during the month and successful in locating and prosecution of people in places vehicle patrols don’t normally travel.

While Grabinsky acknowledged the frustration over crime, Councillor Trent Houk relayed some different frustration over the traffic enforcement blitzes by police.

He said he received comments from residents asking “why are they over at Tim Hortons, Burger King, giving little old ladies a ticket when we should have these guys on at nighttime fighting real crime.”

Grabinsky responded they have a dedicated traffic safety unit to ensure safety on the roads, targeting high collision zones where the greatest injury and costs come. What they are finding is the collisions are happening at intersections, where failure to stop at a stop sign or failure to stop at red lights to turn right happen.

“I do find it is important to be enforcing those traffic laws to make sure we are safe at intersections,” said Grabinsky.

Corman Park police board fires chief

BY JEREMY WARREN, THE STARPHOENIX SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

The Corman Park board of police commissioners fired the RM's police chief on Tuesday.

The commission fired Ron Boechler, who started the job in 2010, for not co- operating with an investigation into a complaint about his conduct, said the commission's lawyer.

"It is a very serious matter when a police chief refuses as directed to co-operate in an investigation into his conduct," said Prince Albert-based lawyer Mitchell Holash.

Boechler went on medical leave in February and was put on paid administrative leave in April when the commission brought in the Prince Albert Police Service to investigate a complaint about his conduct.

Holash declined to talk about the nature of the complaint. The investigation is ongoing and the results will be made public, the commission said in a news release. In August, the board directed Boechler to attend an interview with the investigator, but he declined the request through his lawyer, which is a decision considered to be insubordination, Holash said.

The firing is not related to the circumstances of the conduct complaint, Holash added.

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Corman Park RM Reeve Judy Harwood, who also sits on the board of police commissioners, declined to comment.

Boechler, a longtime Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools board trustee, also declined to comment.

The board is independent of the RM's council and is governed by the provincial Police Act.

Boechler has 30 days to request permission from the Saskatchewan Police Commission to appeal his firing, according to the Police Act.

Regina red light cameras bring in big bucks By Sarah Richter Reporter Global News REGINA – It’s not a camera you want to see yourself on, but many drivers in Regina are.

In 2012, 1,500 drivers were nabbed by red light cameras. There are working cameras at two intersections in the city (Albert Street and Saskatchewan Drive along with Albert Street and Parliament Drive).

“The red light cameras are doing their job,” said Sgt. Andrew Puglia, part of the Regina Police Service traffic safety unit.

Tickets are $230, and last year, totaled over $320,000. The money is split between the city, province and a victim surcharge fund.

One other camera is at Dewdney Avenue and Lewvan Drive but it has not worked in three years. A committee of city, police and SGI representatives is determining if it needs to be replaced or if other intersections could use a camera.

“We are looking if this program needs to be continued,” explained Ravi Seera, the city’s traffic operations manager. “If it needs to be continued we are going to look at other high crash locations, as well.”

Seera expects within the next six to eight months the committee will come back with some recommendations, including what other options can be taken at problematic intersections.

“There are other tools which we have like advanced signal warning lights, even the pedestrian countdown signals, which the city has been installing (recently),” he said.

19 Saskatoon, a similar sized city, has three red light cameras. Another will be added next month. Meanwhile, Winnipeg has 50, with ticket revenue expected to be almost $10 million this year.

Regina does not have as many, but police say the cameras are making a difference and getting drivers to be more cautious of their driving habits.

“In particular, Albert Street and Saskatchewan Drive,” said Sgt. Puglia. “We don’t have as many serious collisions there as we used to have.”

Even though they are only at a select few locations, police believe the cameras’ effects extend past those immediate areas.

“I think it also improves people’s overall driving when it comes to other intersections,” Sgt. Puglia explained.

Cameras are not only in the city. Three new mobile units move throughout the province, providing photo enforcement in highway construction zones. In the last few weeks of August alone, 83 tickets were handed out.

“The measures we’ve introduced, the new sign measures, and new enforcement measures are making a difference, but excessive speed in work zones is still a problem, unfortunately,” said Ministry of Highways spokesperson Doug Wakabayashi.

Police fight racism with charity run Saskatoon's Run Against Racism helps police build better relations with the public Reported by Lasia Kretzel First Posted: Sep 21, 2013 1:41pm | Last Updated: Sep 21, 2013 1:42pm CJME Saskatoon residents were running down racism at Victoria Park on Saturday.

A couple hundred people took part in the third annual Run Against Racism, hosted by the Saskatoon Police Service. Runners took part in a three or five kilometer route and raised donations for the Saskatoon Food Bank.

While residents may not communicate with police unless there’s an emergency or crime, Const. Jing Xio said the run was designed to give police a chance to interact with the public in a casual setting while generating awareness about racism in the community.

“The goal is to create a really positive environment for people of all ages, cultures, religions, ethnic backgrounds. It’s also most important to create awareness to fight racism,” she said.

Chief Clive Weighill spoke at the event and said the force has instituted a number of programs to improve community relations including functions and

20 presentations around the city. He said Saskatoon Police can now interpret 80 different languages and up to 120 dialects.

According to Weighill 12 per cent of the force is either Aboriginal or Métis and five per cent are new Canadians. “So you can see the face of Saskatoon Police. Not only is our city changing, our police service is changing,” Weighill said.

All that work may be paying off.

Aboriginal relations consultant Monica Goulet said between 2005 and 2009, an Insightrix poll showed a 79 per cent jump in public faith in police.

“Back in 2005, out of the aboriginal people that were polled, only 38 per cent had faith in our police service. It was at an all time low. In 2009, guess what; it went up to 68 per cent.” Goulet said, adding that she attributes that increase to teamwork.

“When you look around this gathering, we do not shy away from the topic of racism. We acknowledge it’s a reality (and) our police chief talks very openly about it.”

The event also gave police a chance to raise food and money for those less fortunate. Runners were encouraged to 'cram a cruiser' with non-perishable food items with all proceeds going to the Saskatoon Food Bank and Learning Centre.

MANITOBA

ONTARIO Sudbury's police chief tapped for top job Victoria Star Staff Wednesday, September 18, 2013 1:59:58 EDT PM

Greater Sudbury Police Chief Frank Elsner has been tapped to be the next top cop in Victoria.

However, while Victoria’s police board has selected a new chief, the decision is in limbo because the board doesn’t have enough members to finalize the decision, the Times Times Colonist reported Tuesday.

The board picked Elsner on Friday, but two days later, on Sunday, four of the eight police board members’ terms expired and replacements haven’t been announced, the newspaper reported.

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Barb Desjardins, Esquimalt mayor and vice-chairwoman of the police board in Victoria, said that means the chief selection process can’t be finalized unless the board can meet quorum, which is five members.

It is up to the provincial government in B.C. to replace the board members.

Elsner is saying little about the move. In a Twitter response to The Star’s Laura Stricker, he said he would talk “when I have something to say.

Elsner, 50, who has three decades of policing experience in Ontario, joined the Greater Sudbury police as deputy chief in 2007 and rose to the top cop position in 2009.

Desjardins said interviews with the final two candidates for chief took place in Victoria on Friday but she would not confirm Elsner was the top choice.

“We have a preferred candidate,” Desjardins said this morning. “We have notified the candidate but there’s still a number of things that need to be done.”

The Victoria police board last met Friday after the interviews to agree on the preferred candidate, Desjardins said. But two days later, on Sunday, four of the eight police board members’ terms expired and replacements haven’t been announced.

Desjardins said that means the chief selection process can’t be finalized unless the board can meet quorum, which is five members.

“To hear that only the (two) municipal appointees have been reappointed … and no provincial appointees at this time was very surprising to all of us,” she said.

Karen Kesteloo, Lindalee Brougham, Gordy Dodd, and Roy Cullen were the four provincial appointees whose terms were not renewed.

Brougham, who was on the selection committee, confirmed a new chief had been selected but could not confirm who it is.

“We selected a phenomenal candidate. We went across Canada. We had the best officers apply for the job,” said Brougham, who was on the police board for five years, the longest serving appointee.

Brougham said while she was disappointed her term was not renewed, the new board members will have to finalize the hiring of the new chief.

“The future board will have to determine if they support what we did,” she said.

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin said he cannot comment on the new chief until the process is finalized.

22 “We look forward to an announcement as soon as we can but we want to make sure that as a board we're doing a good job, making sure we get the right police chief for Victoria, one that has the experience and fits both our communities,” Fortin said.

Attorney General Suzanne Anton said in a statement this morning:

“With the mayors and two council-nominated municipal board members in place, I do recognize the board is currently one member short of a quorum. I can assure you that finalizing our provincial appointments is a priority for government.”

Anton said in the statement that interviews have been done and the province is about to select the candidates.

“This process will [be] complete in the near future and I don’t expect it to hinder the hiring of a new police chief for Victoria,” the statement said.

Police spokesman Const. Mike Russell said he can’t comment on the chief hiring since it’s a decision of the police board.

Elsner has been a police officer in Ontario for more than 30 years, serving with the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police, and the Thunder Bay and Owen Sound police forces.

Current Chief Jamie Graham’s five-year term is set to expire at the end of the year.

Greater Sudbury police just celebrated 40 years since the amalgamation of six smaller police forces. Victoria Police has long pushed for the amalgamation of Greater Victoria’s seven police departments. Their strategic plan and official branding touts 2020 as the goal for Greater Victoria being Canada’s “safest region.”

Police board reappoints Carl Nicholson

BY MEGHAN HURLEY, OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 20, 2013

OTTAWA — Ottawa Police Services Board member Carl Nicholson has been reappointed for another three years.

“Police board membership has a relatively steep learning curve and another term will give me the opportunity to further deliver on the investment that our community and the board have made in me,” Nicholson said in a statement.

Nicholson, who was first appointed to the board in 2010, has been the executive director of the Catholic Immigration Centre since 1994 and has held the same position with the Catholic Immigration Centre Foundation since 1996.

23

A news release from the board said Nicholson also serves as the president of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants and is an executive member with the Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership Council.

Nicholson was previously the co-chair of the Community and Police Action Committee and a member of the Canada Border Services Advisory Committee.

In 2004, Nicholson received the Community Foundation of Ottawa’s investing in people award and the United Way Centraide of Ottawa’s community builder award the year before.

Final submissions in / Stirling Rawdon Police Board matter

Wed, Sep 25th, '13 - 4:56 pm Quinte News

The hearing into the behaviour of Stirling Rawdon Police Board Chair Greg Oliver is coming to an end.

The lawyers for Oliver and the Ontario Civilian Police Commission made final submissions Wednesday.

At issue is Olivers conduct as Stirling Rawdon Police Board member and as Chair during the heated controversy over Police Chief Brian Foley’s contract and contract extension, which was passed by the previous Police Services Board.

The issues roiled the community over the past 3 years and they remain a topic of conversation and concern in Stirling Rawdon.

The lawyer for the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, Brian Whitehead, maintains Greg Oliver, as Chair of the Police Board, broke the Police Board’s Code of Conduct on several occasions and should be punished with a suspension as Chair of the Board.

Greg Oliver is still technically the Chair of the Board, but cannot exercise the duties of Chair, and has not been able to since being removed from the Board in August of 2011.

Commission lawyer Whitehead was first to make his final submission.

He began by quoting the late CBC host Peter Gzowski, who said, “there’s not much to see in small towns, but there sure is a lot to hear.”

Whitehead said the issues surrounding the Police Board, the former Board, and the Police Chief were all the community was talking about for months.

24 Whitehead said people were hearing all kinds of stories, many untrue, everywhere in the community, and at public meetings, about the Chief’s contract and former Board members actions.

The lawyer saId Mr. Oliver failed to correct untrue statements circulating in Stirling Rawdon, and he maintains it was Olivers duty to do so under the Boards Code of Conduct.

Whitehead maintained that Olivers’ behaviour and lack of action to counter misinformation in the community broke the Code of Conduct governing Police Board members on several occasions over several months.

The lawyer said Olivers conduct had serious and negative effects on Chief Foley and two former Police Board members, Shawn LaPalm and Rosanna Clark, along with Stirling employee, Linda Philp.

Mr. Whitehead also mentioned Mayor Rodney Cooney several times, painting him as the ringleader of a group trying to humiliate Chief Foley and former Board members. He said Oliver was a member of that group.

Mr. Whitehead said, as Chair, Oliver should have reined in Mayor Rodney Cooney, particularily pointing to a speech on policing matters that he gave and was subsequently released to the local press.

Whitehead maintains Oliver should have stopped Mayor Cooney midstream when making untrue statements, or at least publicly corrected them immediately afterward.

The lawyer said Oliver allowed the public to aggressively question Chief Foley on his contract and his rank at Police Board meetings.

He said that caused embarassment for the Chief and said that allowing untrue statements about the contract to continue to swirl in the community amounted to “torturing the Chief” over several months.

Whitehead maintains the role of a Police Board member, and particularily the Chair, is to inspire confidence in the Police Service.

The Commission’s lawyer is pushing to have Greg Oliver suspended.

Olivers lawyer, Patrick Hurley, was next to present a final submission to the Commissions two member panel.

Hurley began by telling the Commission panel what he believed this case was NOT about.

He said it wasn’t about Oliver being corrupt, or unethical behaviour, or his criticism of the situation regarding policing in Stirling Rawdon.

Hurley framed the hearing as being primarily about the “public interest.”

25

The lawyer said that he could find no legal precedent for finding someone “legally responsible” for words spoken by someone else and for actions “not” taken.

Hurley said doing so was commonly known as “scapegoating”, adding that a penalty could only be levied against his client for “his words, his actions”.

Hurley said that a lot of the evidence presented in the lengthy hearing was about issues that weren’t even outlined in the Notice of Hearing.

He maintains the Commission should not even consider evidence that doesn’t point to specific allegations in the Notice of Hearing.

Hurley said the primary duty of a Police Services Board is to provide effective civilian oversight of the Police Service, not to protect the Chief or any former Police Board members.

Hurley said the sometimes heated discussions regarding Chief Foley’s contract were perfectly legitimate, a sign that the Police Board was doing its job, which was to represent the publics’ concerns and interests.

Hurley said that Police Board meetings were not to be “tea parties”, and that Police Board members had every right to, and should be, asking tough questions about concerns they have.

Hurley said should the Commission panel rule to suspend Greg Oliver, they would in effect be approving the “muzzling” of Police Board members and hurting civilian oversight of the Police Service.

He added that public servants must serve the wider public as best they can, not serve a particular organization.

Finally, Hurley said that the Commissions attempt to penalize Oliver was in fact, the State punishing someone for speaking his mind and punishing someone for other people’s statements.

The lawyer maintains this move would be a contravention of the Charter of Rights protection of free speech.

Hurley asked that the Commission panel consider the Charter very carefully when coming to a decision.

He spent the last part of his submission pointing out several instances where testimony from the Chief, former Board members and the Board secretary was contradictory.

It could be the end of the year before the Commission panel hands down its ruling,.

26 Police chief explains process of paying informants Sep 20, 2013 | Kawartha Lakes This Week ByMary Riley (LINDSAY) Kawartha Lakes Police Chief John Hagarty told the Police Services Board the money paid to informants is within the police budget.

At the Sept. 16 meeting, the chief responded to questions by board member and mayor Ric McGee, who asked why the police service has “blown through” $3,000, which has been paid to informants since August.

The police have a specific budget for paid informants that is separate from how Crime Stoppers works, the chief explained.

The chief disagreed with the mayor when he said he had not seen a lot of press coverage of incidents, such as drug busts. “I’ve seen a lot of media reports,” the chief said.

Chief Hagarty explained how informants are dealt with is “highly regulated.” The money adds up when “$100 here, $200 there” is paid to people tipping police to marijuana grow operations, guns and drugs, for example.

He pointed out the Crime Stoppers fund rewards tipsters who can remain anonymous.

The police informant fund, however, is specifically used by select investigators who must cultivate a relationship with an informant within “the culture they work in,” the chief said.

He later told This Week police forces have used informants for decades, but, because the money is cash there are no cheques or receipts but the process is “very strict and very documented.”

Usually, the funds are made available in $1,000 increments, and only a select number of Criminal Investigation Bureau officers are permitted access. The key factor is that information supplied by informants often results in police being able to obtain a search warrant on a given incident; a proven informant’s information is often enough to satisfy a justice of the peace in obtaining that warrant.

The chief noted money is never paid to an informant unless the police are successful in “getting the drugs, gun, bad guy” the information provides.

Chief Hagarty said the informants’ fund is always part of the budget (ultimately approved by the board and council), and the money paid to informants to date is within that budget. But, he noted that as a board member, the mayor has a right to question it or any other line item.

27 Toronto police chief eager to collaborate with Ontario’s incoming SIU head ANN HUI The Globe and Mail Published Tuesday, Sep. 24 2013, 8:40 AM EDT After a turbulent relationship with the outgoing head of Ontario’s police watchdog, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair says he expects an “excellent working relationship” with the agency’s incoming director.

Next month, veteran Crown attorney Tony Loparco, who currently runs the Crown office in Scarborough, will step into the role of head of Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit.

“He’s a very experienced Crown, well-known by my officers, and very respected,” Chief Blair said in an interview with The Globe and Mail Monday.

“I have every confidence of Mr. Loparco’s background – he’ll bring his experience, and he’ll have our full support to do the important work he has to do.”

Mr. Loparco takes over the SIU during a particularly tumultuous time for the agency and its relationship with the Toronto Police. Ian Scott, whose five-year term ends next month, was an outspoken critic of Toronto’s force. Just last month, he singled out Chief Blair, accusing the chief of not co-operating with the SIU.

“He doesn’t answer my letters, and I think if he bought into the concept [of public confidence in civilian oversight], there would be a freer discourse and dialogue between the two of us,” Mr. Scott told The Globe and Mail last month.

In response at the time, Mark Pugash, the spokesman for the Toronto Police, called Mr. Scott’s comments “totally wrong,” and referred to a 2011 report by former Ontario chief justice Patrick LeSage saying that police chiefs must report to police boards, and not to the SIU.

When asked whether he has any regrets on the way the situation was handled, Chief Blair said “not at all. I didn’t engage with Mr. Scott on the matter.”

He said that his responsibility is to ensure that officers co-operate with the SIU in investigations, and that all SIU directors – including Mr. Scott – have received this co-operation.

“Mr. Scott’s free to make whatever comments, and he’s made them. I’m not going to debate the law with Mr. Scott,” he said. “I do, however, look forward to working collaboratively with his successor.”

28 Departing SIU head Ian Scott still fighting for police accountability Now completing his five-year term, Ian Scott reflects on the struggle to learn the whole story when cops are involved in injury or death. TORONTO STAR

By: Jennifer Pagliaro News reporter, Published on Fri Sep 20 2013 Ian Scott listened as first of nine shots rang out — pop, pop, pop.

A pause. Six more shots.

At home in July, the departing director of the Special Investigations Unit watched the shooting of Sammy Yatim the way most of the city did — on YouTube.

“In the morning (after the shooting), I went and played tennis and someone came up to me and said: ‘Did you see that video?’” Scott, 61, recalled during a wide- ranging interview with the Star before leaving his post at the provincial police watchdog agency next month.

There was an intake report about the shooting already waiting at his desk in Mississauga. But he hadn’t seen the video yet. “So I went home and watched it,” he said.

Scott said citizen video has become a game-changer in policing — something he embraces as an important piece of solving the “puzzle” of SIU investigations.

“The video ratcheted that into a completely different echelon,” Scott said of the case involving Yatim, an 18-year-old gunned down by police inside an empty streetcar. The bystander video taken of the incident sparked public outrage across the city.

Today’s prevalence of video suggests that the days “where these things are going to disappear into the woodwork — they’re over.”

In his five-year tenure — Scott is the first director to stick out a full term in the SIU’s 23-year history — he has fought many protracted public battles.

When he took the helm in October 2008, the SIU faced ongoing accusations of being “toothless.” That year, a scathing report from Ontario Ombudsman André Marin called for an overhaul of the agency to regain public trust. “The more I got into really understanding what the job was about, the more I realized the essence of this job is really about facilitating public confidence in police oversight in the investigations,” Scott says now. “And that’s really what I focused on.”

Three years later, Marin — who also served as SIU director for nearly two years — released a second report that applauded many of Scott’s efforts and turned a

29 harsh spotlight on the Ministry of the Attorney General for “deliberately undermining” the watchdog’s role.

Scott — who strikes a sharp, lean figure in a full suit and red tie, despite his own observation that he’s greyer now than five years ago — said the ministry blocked him from releasing his first annual report, which hinged on “accountability” and was critical of police actions.

“There’s only one way of looking at that, which is that there was pressure put on me to not bring to light some of these issues,” he said. He’d like to see the SIU, which now boasts 14 full-time investigators and more than 30 on-call investigators, become independent of the ministry, reporting directly to Queen’s Park just as the ombudsman’s office does. “It’s obviously not going to happen on my watch,” he said. There are other battles he will leave for his replacement, Crown attorney Tony Loparco.

From his first report until now, Scott has insisted that police association lawyers should not have the right to review the notes of officers before they are handed over to the SIU for their investigation. That argument has made its way to the Supreme Court for what could be a precedent-setting decision.

“The notes of police officers are fundamental to understanding the facts of the day,” he said. “The cleaner the facts are, the more comfortable I can be at arriving at the right decision.”

Some wars have been more personal, the kind Scott has been vocal about in recent months.

In letters written to the heads of police forces at the conclusion of an investigation, Scott said he often addresses issues such as uncooperative police officers and Police Services Act regulations he believes are being broken. Marin’s 2011 report documented how rarely Scott received any kind of reply to these letters from Ontario’s 58 police services. Since then, there have been some improvements,Scott said, citing the OPP in particular. Anticipating the question, he adds, laughing: “You know the story in Toronto.”

In August, Scott publicly vilified Toronto Police Chief Blair for not responding to more than 100 letters.

In response, police spokesperson Mark Pugash said the watchdog had no authority over the chief to demand a response. Scott sees it another way.

“He’s not required to answer them . . . I merely asked,” Scott said. “I think we’re in the same business. We’re both in the business of public confidence in policing . . . There’s a very fundamental issue of confidence going on.” In this job, the criticism comes from all sides, he said.

30 “This is not a popularity contest,” he said. “There are sort of two lineups outside the SIU: a line of disgruntled police officers and a line of disgruntled complainants and their families.”

But he does see his responsibility to one of those groups clearly. “What’s more important: for the public to understand it, or for the police to be happy? My view is that’s an easy question to answer,” he said. “If the public believes that civilian oversight is working effectively . . . at the end of the day it will lead to a stronger sense of trust with policing themselves.”

As Scott moves on with plans to open his own criminal practice, which he hopes will continue to focus on police governance issues, there are cases he says will always haunt him.

Like the 18-year-old girl whose life was snuffed out by a police officer speeding at 200 km/h outside Thunder Bay. The girl’s parents used to send him cards with her picture tucked inside. The officer pleaded guilty and spent two years in jail. “I’ve got kids. No one wants to see people who have got their whole lives ahead of them, their whole futures, die like that so unnecessarily and so tragically,” he said. “That case sticks in my mind.”

There have been successes, too.

After a public fight with Blair over whether a citizen video was tampered, Scott charged Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani with assault with a weapon in the beating of G20 protester Adam Nobody. Last week, a court found the officer guilty — the first criminal conviction of an officer since the summit led to widespread complaints about heavyhanded policing three years earlier.

In five years, Scott has considered 365 cases in Toronto alone, and has charged 19 officers — six of whom have been found guilty. Several cases, including that of Const. James Forcillo, who is charged in the death of Sammy Yatim, are still before the courts.

There are cases that continue to irk Scott, whose details he recalls perfectly. In a large conference room at SIU headquarters, Scott begins drawing on a legal pad — a large rectangle for a car, a BMW, and a small box for the man inside it, Phabien Rhodius. Then a circle for an officer, Const. Boris Petkovic, who stopped Rhodius on suspected bail violations, and a straight line showing how a bullet he shot at the fleeing suspect grazed Rhodius.

The director never learned about the 2007 incident until 2009, when Rhodius got out of jail and called the SIU trying to get his personal property back.

“It was never reported to the SIU,” Scott said. “We didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Scott believed there were grounds to charge the Toronto officer — who had been cleared in an internal police investigation at the time — with aggravated assault and discharging a firearm with intent, but he was eventually acquitted in 2013.

31 Scott said 60 per cent of the cases where the SIU lays charges end that way, without any finding of guilt.

“What bothered me about that case was the fact that it was not reported,” Scott said. Some things are hard to let go for the man who has made a career out of questioning police.

But soon he’ll be back in court, continuing to seek answers. Tasers for Toronto police raise concerns in the community SAHAR FATIMA TORONTO — The Globe and Mail Published Tuesday, Sep. 24 2013, 9:51 PM EDT Last updated Wednesday, Sep. 25 2013, 5:02 AM EDT

Police should invest in de-escalation training instead of expanding weapons available for use against citizens, community advocates argued Tuesday, just prior to a public consultation on expanding taser use.

“The fact is that a taser is not an adequate weapon if someone is really coming at you with a knife. It’s not reliable enough,” said Peter Rosenthal, a Toronto lawyer who has represented victims of police shootings and their families. “There’s no really good use for it in my view.”

Sakura Saunders, with the grassroots group Disarm Toronto Police, said Toronto should take weapons away from front-line officers, not expand their arsenal.

“What we’re worried about is that tasers will be used when police wouldn’t have used guns in the first place,” she said. “We’re not suggesting that all police don’t have arms, but that specially trained officers have guns that can be called in.”

Their sentiments were echoed by other members of the public during the Toronto Police Services Board consultation; speakers also raised options such as expanding the service’s Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams, specially trained for mental-health cases, or purchasing tasers with low voltages.

Recent changes to the Ministry of Community Safety’s guidelines on tasers mean that all front-line officers, not just supervisors and tactical teams, may carry the devices.

Toronto Police spokesman Mark Pugash said the service has a detailed policy for emotionally disturbed persons, who are involved in about 20,000 police incidents a year.

“The vast majority of those cases are resolved successfully,” Mr. Pugash said.

Police Chief Bill Blair has expressed support for expanding the use of tasers and pointed to an opportunity in the budget for an expanded program in 2014. He has

32 argued conducted energy weapons can potentially save lives in situations where force is necessary but a gun could lead to tragedy.

The debate on tasers was reignited after 18-year-old Sammy Yatim was fatally shot several times and then tasered in July. Last month, an 80-year-old Mississauga woman fell and fractured a hip after being tasered.

Ms. Saunders said, “We think it’s really inappropriate to give the police more weapons after Sammy Yatim’s death because what we should be doing right now is reflecting on poor decision making of the police and police abuse.”

Challenge police on human rights

BY MARGARET PARSONS AND VIRGINIA NELDER OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

The Ontario Human Rights Commission recently released its latest annual report: Rights, Partners, Action! While Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall acknowledges that the Commission has “not made all the progress that is needed”, she states that the commission aims to “set standards” in order to meet its mandate of creating systemic change, and depends on its “partners” to do so.

The Annual Report states that “the OHRC has worked with police services … and other key players to find and remove barriers caused by racism and racial profiling. But the problem is still there.”

Perhaps this is because the commission is more interested in its partnerships with police, than in any partnership with the racialized communities that it is mandated to protect from systemic discrimination. These misguided partnerships have failed to effect any meaningful change.

The annual report discusses the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decision in Maynard v. TPSB in which the tribunal found that Rawle Maynard, an African- Canadian man, had been racially profiled when he was subject to a police take down at multiple gunpoint in the driveway of his home.

Maynard requested that the tribunal order the Toronto Police to review existing policies and procedures on use of force with respect to its impact on racialized groups, and to provide training to officers to ensure use of force (drawing of guns) is a last resort.

The tribunal noted that this remedy had been requested by Maynard and not the commission. Despite stating its concern about the lack of training the officers had received in how racial bias can manifest in such a situation, the tribunal declined to order this remedy as “to do so could cause interference with the collaborative

33 work of the Commission and the (Toronto Police Services Board).” In other words, the tribunal left this issue in the hands of the commission.

The commission appears to have done nothing substantive to address the unnecessary use of force, even in the face of police brutality at the G20. Unfortunately, the recent tragic police shooting death of Sammy Yatim suggests this “collaborative work” between the commission and the TPS has failed.

A second glaring example of the commission’s failure to effect meaningful change in the area of racial profiling is the so-called “Aiken settlement.” What the annual report fails to mention is that the commission and the Ottawa Police Services Board reached that settlement without the consent of complainant Chad Aiken, who was represented by the African Canadian Legal Clinic. The settlement between the commission and the OPSB is simply window dressing. It is contrary to expert recommendations that the commission had adopted, and the commission’s own policy position as set out in its publications Paying the Price and Count Me In!

The Commission compromised Aiken’s right to a remedy that fully addresses racial profiling of African Canadians, as set out in the ACLC’s open letter to Barbara Hall. The commission had the opportunity to set a standard that effected much needed progress in addressing racial profiling through race-based data collection. Instead, the commission’s partnership with the Ottawa police, to the exclusion of Aiken whose right to be free from discrimination was violated, has resulted in only partial police accountability for racial profiling of African Canadians in Ottawa.

The commission’s touted partnerships with human rights violators is a dismal failure to fulfil its mandate of effecting systemic change, to the continuing detriment of racialized communities and the broader public interest. Yes, Barbara Hall, the problem is still there, thanks to the commission.

Margaret Parsons is executive director and Virginia Nelder is staff lawyer at the African Canadian Legal Clinic, a not-for-profit organization established in 1994 expressly to address anti-Black racism in Canadian society.

Program to keep young people away from gangs announced in Dorset Park Sep 24, 2013 |

Scarborough Mirror By Mike Adler Local MP Roxanne James got some federal crime-fighting responsibilities and a new public safety program for her Scarborough Centre riding on the same day.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper named James parliamentary secretary for public safety on Thursday, Sept. 19.

34 Hours later, on a visit to the Dorset Park Hub in Scarborough, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said that was appropriate. “It’s the core of her involvement in politics,” said Blaney, noting James, since being elected in 2011, successfully proposed a private members’ bill to stop “frivolous complaints” by prisoners.

James’ bill changed the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and received royal ascent in March.

“I promised her we would keep her very busy” in her new role, Blaney said.

Blaney and James were at the Kennedy Road building to announce Taking Action Against Gangs in Scarborough (TAAGS), for which their Conservative government will pay $3.4 million over five years to help 540 young people, between ages 12 to 18 and displaying “anti-social high-risk behaviours,” stay away from crime.

The program will use close supervision, 24-hour support and what is called multi- systemic therapy to turn around youth that are the hardest to reach, said Lee Soda, executive director of the Agincourt Community Services Association, the agency that will run the program from the hub.

On July 10, James announced $507,000 to extend GangBusters, another ACSA- led program using multi-systemic therapy in Scarborough, for a year.

TAAGS, which will replace the old program, is apparently similar but will concentrate less on working with the young person’s family and friends than GangBusters does.

Blaney also visited Scadding Court Community Centre in the downtown Toronto community of Alexandra Park to announce $487,000 over three years for the local Catalyst Program, which the government said “helps to reduce re-offending amongst youth” between ages 16 and 25.

All three initiatives are funded under the National Crime Prevention Strategy. “These projects are great,” said Blaney, who called them “the forefront of crime prevention.”

Police watchdog exonerates Ottawa officers in man’s death

BY OTTAWA CITIZEN, OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

OTTAWA — The province’s Special Investigations Unit has found no grounds to charge two Ottawa police officers after a 22-year-old man died jumping from a balcony in August.

35

On the morning of Aug. 2, the officers and paramedics were called to a seventh floor apartment in an Ottawa Community Housing building in the Billings Bridge neighbourhood to check on a male in distress.

When the man wouldn’t answer the door, two Community Housing employees unlocked it. Inside, according to the S.I.U.’s report, officers found the man standing on the balcony holding a large knife. Seeing the officers, he put one leg over the balcony railing, and though an officer yelled at him not to jump, the man did.

A post-mortem found the man died as a result of the fall, with no other injuries to his body.

S.I.U. director Ian Scott determined the Ottawa police officers did “nothing wrong,” that they had “the lawful authority to enter the apartment because they had reasonable grounds to believe that entry was necessary to prevent imminent harm to the man.”

While the man’s death was tragic, Scott ruled, the officers weren’t criminally liable for it.

Of the two officers investigated, one provided the S.I.U. with his duty notes and participated in an interview, and the other did not. (Police officers are not legally bound to co-operate with S.I.U. investigations.)

The arm’s-length agency, which investigates reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury, or sexual assault allegations, assigned two investigators and two forensic investigators to the matter, also interviewing one witness officer and eight civilian witnesses.

Other chiefs would have acted sooner

When asked why it took months to reach out to Steve Mesic's family, Chief Glenn De Caire replied "the Hamilton Police Service has always found the right time and the right place to provide our condolences to families in all of our cases."

BySusan Clairmont Sep 24, 2013 | The Hamilton Spectator

Chief Glenn De Caire could have — and should have — offered condolences sooner to the loved ones of police shooting victim Steve Mesic.

At least one chief has done it. Other chiefs say they would do it. And there is a piece of legislation in this province that allows it with no repercussions around liability.

36 It took 3½ months and a heap of public outrage to get De Caire to do the right thing and call Sharon Dorr, Steve's pregnant fiancée.

No matter how the chief tries to spin it, his long delay was not the product of the ongoing Special Investigations Unit probe of Steve's fatal shooting. The investigation began June 7, the day he was killed by Hamilton police and is still — to this moment — plodding along.

If he was truly prohibited from speaking to Steve's family — as the chief has insisted from the start — then he was as much in violation of that gag order when he contacted Dorr recently as he would have been if he had reached out to her when her grief was fresh.

In Toronto, Chief Bill Blair met with Sammy Yatim's family and offered condolences within days of the teen being fatally shot by police. The chair of Toronto's Police Services Board met with the family as well. Neither has been reprimanded by the SIU for their compassion.

Last week, Mayor Bob Bratina stepped down from Hamilton's police board over De Caire's advice not to speak with Steve's family.

The Ontario Provincial Police would not hesitate to offer condolences if an OPP officer killed someone, says spokesperson Sergeant Pierre Chamberlain.

"Regardless of whether or not there's an ongoing SIU investigation, the commissioner would for sure be speaking to the family," he says.

Of course, if the family did not wish to have contact with the OPP, that would be respected, he added. And if a family member was a witness to the shooting, that could prohibit contact.

Neither of those factors are an issue in Steve's case.

Halton Regional Police Chief Stephen Tanner would offer condolences.

"I think there are ways to do it," he says. "You can say it without commenting on the actions of the officers.

"No matter what led to the shooting, it's a tragedy. Police officers don't want to take a life."

There are no rules about chiefs offering condolences during an SIU investigation, says Joe Couto, spokesperson for the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.

"These decisions are really local ones," he says. "But I don't think there's anything that says 'Thou shalt not.' I do not know of anything in the SIU that would prevent a chief from offering condolences."

Even the SIU itself seems to indicate chiefs can offer sympathy to a family during an investigation.

37

When initially asked about it, SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon quickly answered: "We would have nothing to do with that, whether condolences are offered or not. That's up to the chief."

Later, however, perhaps after realizing this has become a controversial topic in Hamilton, Hudon sent an email saying "We decline to comment."

Then, going a step further than condolences, there's Ontario's Apology Act.

Passed in 2009, the legislation allows for public apologies without fear of having them used as an admission of fault or liability in court.

The spirit of the legislation allows for healing and reconciliation without affecting the right to sue for compensation or receive damages and with no impact on criminal proceedings or provincial offence prosecutions.

De Caire told me recently in a tense exchange that he did not contact the family earlier because he is "prohibited in law from discussing any of the facts of the case."

Steve's family has never asked for him to discuss the facts of the case. All they asked for was condolences, some acknowledgement from their community's police chief of the loss they have suffered.

In the same exchange, De Caire told me "the Hamilton Police Service has always found the right time and the right place to provide our condolences to families in all of our cases."

He said that as though he knows what is best for those who loved Steve.

Commentary: Council gains upper hand amid shifting sands of police board

Hamilton Spectator ByAndrew Dreschel September 27, 2013 Mayor Bob Bratina's resignation from the police services board has swung the balance of power on the board back into the hands of city council — just in time for the debate over the 2014 police budget.

That new reality was muscled home by tough-talking councillors at Wednesday night's meeting.

They rattled sabres over a preliminary request by police for a 3.65 per cent budget increase — $5.1 million — over last year.

38 And they greeted an anticipated appeal for an additional $1 million to fund an expanded Taser program with all but open scorn.

Bernie Morelli, a member of the police board and a possible candidate for the chair position vacated by Bratina, said the answer is going to be "zero" for Taser funding because there's simply no money.

Lloyd Ferguson, who council appointed as Bratina's permanent replacement on the board, agreed Taser funding is a "tough sell."

And Chad Collins noted council has already directed staff to tell all boards and agencies, including police, to keep their 2014 budget increases as close to zero as possible.

The difference between this belt-tightening rhetoric and last year's is they now have the votes on the police board to back it up without fear of the board going over their heads and appealing to a provincial tribunal.

Claiming an epiphany of conscience, Bratina stepped down from the board last week in the face of a continuing controversy over the fatal police shooting of Steve Mesic.

That resolved the bizarre problem councillors faced during the contentious 2013 police budget, which saw the head of council siding with police Chief Glenn De Caire and the board's provincial appointees against their wishes.

As a result of Bratina's support, the board approved De Caire's request to juggle the hiring of 15 new officers within a 3.52 per cent increase, hitting taxpayers with an annualized cost of $1 million.

The police board is made up of seven members — three provincial appointees, one city appointee, and three members of council, including the mayor or a replacement designated by council.

With Bratina gone and new city appointee Walt Juchniewicz apparently sympathetic to council's zero budgeting, voting power has now clearly shifted in favour of the elected officials.

Councillor Terry Whitehead is still under board suspension because of a conduct investigation. Council originally appointed Ferguson to temporarily replace him, but rescinded that appointment so Ferguson could be Bratina's permanent replacement.

They held off appointing a new temporary stand-in for Whitehead because they expect the result of the investigation by the Ontario Civilian Police Commission to be known before the board's next meeting on Oct. 21.

Even in the unlikely event Whitehead is permanently removed from the board as a result of the probe, council can simply replace him with another councillor inclined to rein in police spending.

39

At $140 million, the police budget is the second highest among city departments, after public works.

Collins pointed out that both the public and council "are still reeling from the budget hangover of 2013." And Sam Merulla served notice he intends to introduce a motion for council to endorse the Taser program in principle, but reject funding it unless it comes directly from the province.

Merulla was incensed that after hiring 15 new officers in the 2013 budget, De Caire is now looking at another six for the Taser program, raising the total to 21 new hires over two years. He said the police service needs to realize council's will is supreme.

"It's not happening right now. We have the tail wagging the dog and we've got to cut the tail off because we can't afford it."

Morelli noted the 2013 budget was as "exceptional year" because the board did not co-operate with council as it has in the past — the message being, that's about to change.

All in, perhaps it's just as well De Caire is stepping down when his contract expires at the end of 2014. Bratina's exit from the board has clearly wounded him politically, as did his own short-sighted refusal to compromise more fully with council's wishes. That makes him a lame duck, twice over.

Arbitration, tax assessments crunch Region budget

By Jeff Bolichowski, The Standard Thursday, September 26, 2013 10:33:25 EDT PM

THOROLD - Niagara Regional Police's hefty arbitration award is expected to leave Niagara Region with a hefty deficit even as big bills threaten next year's budget.

The Region on its own is expecting a $2.2 million surplus, regional council's budget committee heard Thursday night. But with the police force expecting a $4.6-million deficit fueled largely by a 3.05% wage hike handed to the NRP retroactive to 2012, on top of some costs at Niagara Regional Housing, a $2.6- million deficit looks likely.

And 2014 looks no easier for the Region's budget crunchers, with arbitration decisions and tax reassessments for social housing leaving the Region sitting at a 2.5% tax hike right now - above the 2% councillors want.

40 "They may have some tough questions about programs and services," said acting treasurer Chris McQueen. "There may have to be a question about how priorities and considerations are shuffled."

McQueen said Regional staffers spent the summer trying to make budget. They found $1.5 million in savings, but another $1.5 million is still outstanding - $800,000 for a program to cover when council grants relief from development charges and another $700,000 to cover property tax re-assessments for some of Niagara Regional Housing's properties.

The pressures could rise, McQueen said, if Niagara Regional Police come in over budget. And staff still need to put a dollar figure to a move by council last week to explore an arts funding program.

"If you choose to invest in culture, it pushes that (cost) up accordingly," he said.

Among the big cost pressures is the arbitration, McQueen said. He said the Region is hoping the police meet the 2.7% target - before assessment growth - they've been asked to aim for.

But earlier Thursday, the Niagara Regional Police Services Board delayed a vote on a budget increase of 3.37%.

McQueen said that would translate to another million dollars and drive the Region's tax hike to 2.9%.

A big part of the coming budget rides on the police force, said budget committee chair Dave Augustyn. "I think that's a big part of the question mark they're going for," the Pelham mayor said.

"I'm confident we can work through it," he said.

"We've always done well at getting to the guidance. It will be tougher. Is it tougher than previous years? Maybe."

In 2013 the Region could afford a larger NRP budget, Augustyn said. This year, he said, the Region is under much stiffer fiscal pressure.

McQueen said the police figured the arbitration would cost $5.7 million, but they found some offsetting savings.

He said the Region could look at dipping into its reserves or issuing debt to cover the outstanding costs. But spending the Region's savings is not sustainable and relying on debt could hurt the Region's credit rating.

Council could also increase taxes more than 2% if they don't want to cut services.

Regional staff will seek creative options to make budget, McQueen said, but they already spent the summer pinching pennies to get to where they are.

41 A sparse collection of councillors spent Thursday night hearing McQueen update them on the budget before setting their schedule for talks on the 2014 fiscal road map. They will spend the next week in committee reviewing the budgets of the Region's departments.

Earlier, councillors heard the results of the Region's pre-budget consultations, but St. Catharines Coun. Bruce Timms disputed a report suggesting most residents said they would accept a 2% tax hike or more if it means maintaining service levels, suggesting it could also be read as a majority wanting 2% or less.

St. Catharines Coun. Brian Heit suggested Timms add figures from the survey to reach the totals he wanted.

"I really don't mind if councillor Heit chooses to insult my intelligence," Timms retorted. "I'm a visual learner." He said the presentation "creates the perception the majority of the public want to pay 2% or more."

The Region received more than 1,600 budget surveys. About 57% of respondents said they felt they received good value for their tax dollars and another 40% said they did not.

Port Colborne cop shop may close

By Maryanne Firth, The Tribune Tuesday, September 24, 2013 8:02:19 EDT PM

Mayor Vance Badawey announced Monday night that a recommendation is expected to be brought forward at Thursday’s Niagara Regional Police services board meeting calling for amalgamation of District 6 in Port Colborne into District 3 in Welland. The recommendation, he said, will be made during a presentation by police Chief Jeff McGuire as part of the board’s 2014 budget deliberations.

McGuire declined to comment on the issue prior to Thursday’s meeting.

“I’m extremely disappointed this recommendation is once again coming before us,” Badawey told Port Colborne councillors, adding this is the “third or fourth time” the suggestion has been made over the years.

He called the news particularly upsetting because the NRP’s master plan indicates the detachment is to remain open.

While he is “only one vote,” Badawey, who sits on the police services board, said he will “put up a strong fight” to see the recommendation lost.

“We’ll make them well aware of how minimal the savings is compared to the value it adds to the community.”

42 Port Colborne Fire and Emergency Services works closely with the local NRP detachment and its closure would mean frequent trips to Welland by staff, said fire Chief Tom Cartwright.

That will only further increase the heavy workload already taken on by fire staff, he said, calling the impact “significant.”

Having just approved the tender for the new police headquarters last Thursday, Port Colborne regional Coun. David Barrick said “to hear the next week a recommendation to close the Port Colborne detachment is just outrageous.”

“This recommendation flies in the face of their own business plan,” he said, referring to the 2014-15 plan for the board.

He questioned what kind of message closing the detachment, which had 6,000 calls for service in 2012, sends to potential investors, local BIAs and area residents.

“The benefits (of the detachment) far outweigh the costs,” he said.

Barrick also questioned whether special programs run through the detachment, including Cottage Watch, trail patrols and Beach Day, would continue on the same levels.

Wainfleet Mayor April Jeffs shared fears her community’s police coverage would lessen further if the Port detachment were to close.

Complaints already file in from residents, she said, especially in the summer when seasonal residents and tourists increase.

“I have to give kudos to (Staff Sgt.) Chris Scotland (in Port Colborne). He made a real effort to come out and talk to the seasonal residents this summer and seemed to understand their concerns. He did his best to increase the police presence.”

If Port officers have to work out of Welland, there’s concern, she said, that things will eventually go back to the way they were before.

“We had some improvement and now we’ll go backwards. We pay our portion for police services and I hear time and time again that we don’t get enough coverage, not more than one cruiser. Wainfleet is a big area to cover.”

Jeffs said Wainfleet had an issue with ambulance response times being too long in the township and that was solved with a community response unit. She wonders what will become of response times if officers are stationed in Welland, especially during bad weather.

With a couple of legal marijuana grow-ops in the township, she is worried that if their locations are discovered it could lead to increased criminal activity, especially if the culprits know officers have to travel from Welland.

43

There are other concerns, she said, pointing to ATVs and snowmobiles.

“It could become the Wild West out here,” said Jeffs, who intends to fight alongside Badawey over a detachment closure.

Badawey is expecting the recommendation to be received on Thursday and then sent to Niagara regional council’s committee-of-the-whole for review.

QUEBEC Federal judge denies request to destroy Quebec’s gun registry data

THE GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

MONTREAL — There was a glimmer of hope for those fighting to preserve Quebec’s long gun registry data Wednesday after a federal judge set aside a request to have it destroyed.

The data is central to a case Quebec will argue before the Supreme Court and it would be inappropriate to dispose of what amounts to critical evidence, according to Justice Sean Harrington.

The Conservative government abolished the long gun registry in April 2012 after years of claiming the program was expensive, ineffective and intruded on the rights of rifle owners. But Quebec vowed to preserve the long gun data collected throughout the province to create its own registry.

That’s when a group of firearms advocates, including the National Firearms Association (NFA) and a Quebec gun dealer, filed a motion to have the information in Quebec destroyed as it had been in every other Canadian province and territory.

Quebec’s court of appeals ruled in favour of the advocates’ motion but the provincial government appealed the decision and awaits a federal hearing on the matter. Quebec will argue that the Conservative government’s decision to scrap the registry is unconstitutional and a violation of provincial jurisdiction.

Harrington also objected to a request from the NFA that would make it impossible for Quebec to continue gathering information on long gun purchases and prevent police from accessing the records that already exist. Should Quebec win its case,

44 there would be a “gaping hole” in the registry if the province weren’t allowed to continue gathering data, Harrington wrote in his decision.

Adopted under the Chrétien Liberals, the long gun registry was initially projected to cost about $2 million per year. By the mid 2000s, the project’s cost ballooned to over $600 million.

Despite the highly publicized overruns, a survey by the Canadian Firearms Centre found that most general duty police officers found the registry to be a useful tool during potentially dangerous operations.

Student protests: Montreal police chief Marc Parent defends department’s action

BY CHRISTOPHER CURTIS, THE GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

MONTREAL — At the height of Montreal’s 2012 student crisis, police chief Marc Parent feared he’d wake up one day and find out someone was killed during a protest.

That’s what Parent told reporters Wednesday after testifying before the Ménard Commission — a public inquiry into the social unrest that surrounded the resistance movement against university tuition increases in the spring and summer of 2012. The police chief went to great lengths to detail the shattered and often caustic relationship between riot cops and the thousands of protesters that took to Montreal’s streets almost every night in the spring of 2012.

“During the student demonstrations we saw a variety of techniques used: some peaceful, some violent, some extremely violent,” Parent told commissioner Serge Ménard, who was public security minister when Jacques Parizeau was premier. “There were sit-ins, smoke bombs on the métro, not to mention the blockade of the Jacques Cartier Bridge ... It was unlike anything we’d ever witnessed.”

The police chief acknowledged that some of his officers crossed the line and got “heated” during some of the most intense demonstrations. But, on the whole, Parent said he was proud of the way the department handled a difficult situation.

Oddly enough, Parent seemed to echo the claims of student leaders that the passage of the Liberal government’s Bill 78 was a catalyst for further violence during the resistance. The law was designed to return social order by applying severe restrictions on Quebecers’ right to protest and imposing heavy fines on activist student unions.

But Parent described the days after Bill 78’s passing as the most violent, most chaotic during the student uprising.

45 “Bill 78 widened and intensified the struggle,” Parent said. “Different social groups joined the students. There were massive fires downtown, really bad rioting for days. When the fire department came to extinguish the flames, they were attacked.”

After an uneventful first hour of testimony, commissioner Ménard pressed Parent on the controversial “kettling” technique used by the city’s police — a tactic in which the riot squad would surround hundreds of people and arrest all of them regardless of whether or not they committed a crime. One evening in May 2012 saw about 500 rounded up and detained after a relatively calm demonstration through downtown.

Kettling, Parent said, was a last resort only used if police feared violence.

“You have to admit that in this crowd, there are going to be people who haven’t done a thing wrong, there will be people arrested simply for exercising a democratic right,” Ménard said. “Can you really have a crowd entirely composed of troublemakers? It seems unlikely at best. Even if the protest was declared illegal, there’s a possibility people didn’t hear the order to disperse. But even if they did hear it and they were simply protesting, they weren’t doing anything wrong.”

At first Parent argued that any person participating in an illegal demonstration was breaking the law. But, eventually, he conceded that it was possible certain people were just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“We tried to isolate the troublemakers and only arrest them,” Parent said. “Sometimes they hid in the crowd and sometimes they tried to lead it ... it was hard. It is clear, however, that the troublemakers were only a minority and that most demonstrators were peaceful.”

Ménard grilled the police chief about the conditions protesters were subjected to during mass arrests.

“You had people who couldn’t use the bathroom for hours, people handcuffed in the back of a crowded bus in the heat, with no water to drink,” Ménard said. “These are inadmissible conditions in an organized society.”

The police tried and will continue trying to learn from their mistakes, according to Parent, who said that as time unfolded his officers found ways to expedite arrest and detention time. He also spoke of some cops who took it upon themselves to escort detained protesters to the washroom of a nearby restaurant or fast food chain.

Commissioner Ménard also asked Parent to detail the level of training and preparedness his officers had in crowd control. He also wanted to know what the protocol is for using chemical irritants and plastic-coated bullets as crowd control methods — both of which were used at various times in the spring of 2012.

46 Co-commissioner Claudette Charbonneau spoke of the images she’d seen of crowds of people being targeted by riot police as the ran away, wondering what possible threat they could have posed to police.

“Not all of our officers had much, if any experience in crowd control before 2012,” Parent said. “Some had just learned the basics at (police academy), but we placed them among veterans ... As for the use of force, if police feel they’re in grave danger, if they see pieces of asphalt flying at them or other serious threats, they react.”

After his testimony, Parent denied claims that the mass arrests strategy were used as a deterrent against the student movement’s right to protest. He also emphasized that 71 officers were injured during the student crisis, including several who were hospitalized with concussions.

More than 2,000 people were arrested during the tuition protests and 382 were charged with crimes like assault, armed assault and mischief.

New police chief vows to push out organized crime The Surburban.com

September 25th, 2013

Laval Police, Sûreté du Québec and Royal Canadian Mounted Police will soon set up a new, combined crime-fighting squad, Laval Police Chief Pierre Brochet told The Suburban in interview, after taking office at the beginning of September.

“Laval citizens' safety is non-negotiable,” he asserted. “The different police services will work in concert and exert constant pressure to ensure that it's not easy operate [organized crime networks] in Laval.”

The combined squad will set up shop at Laval police headquarters during the next few weeks, Brochet announced. According to Laval police spokesman Lt. Daniel Guérin, it will bring together five Laval police officers with five SQ and two RCMP members. A previous combined squad - which also included St. Jérome, Ste. Thérèse, Ste. Eustache, Terrebonne, Blainville, Mirabel, Lorraine, Rosemère and Repentigny police services - had racked up more than 800 arrests by the time that the team was disbanded, March 31, when its federal funding dried up. The closure came just after the squad had uncovered a mole who had been using his access to the St. Jérôme police computer network to spy for the mob.

“Laval is a city whose population is growing rapidly,” Brochet observed. “Growth is positive, but urbanization can also be blighted by problems.” Police-public partnership

47 The new police chief said that he also plans to capitalize on his 28 years of experience with the Montreal police service to forge strong bonds with Laval's many diverse communities.

“The importance of the relationship with citizens can't be overemphasized,” he explained. “We can't work in isolation.”

“In Montreal, we formed strategic ties with representatives of the Arab, Asian, Black, Latino, youth and seniors population, to ensure that we remained constantly aware of these citizens' views.”

“My experience has really prepared me to foster community ties,” Brochet continued, “so the next step is to see how we can apply those lessons-learned, here in Laval.”

“Professionalism and empathy are paramount,” he said. “We want citizens to know that we're there for them and responsive to their needs. I plan to make the rounds of local organizations and I have told my police officers that it's essential that people who need help feel that they can turn to their local police service.”

During the past few weeks, candidates from various municipal political parties have told The Suburban that crime is an issue in Laval. Though they did not fault the Laval police service, a number of them suggested that it does not have sufficient resources to do its job effectively.

No new positions have been added to the complement of about 500 officers for well over a year, despite Laval's ongoing population boom. Consequently the police service did not hold its annual ceremony this spring to welcome new recruits to the fold, though several police officers will receive promotions and long-service medals a ceremony slated to be held in November. In contrast, its Montreal counterpart employs some 5,000 police officers.

Brochet said that it is too soon to tell whether Laval merits an increase.

“During the next few months, we will see whether more police are needed to respond to Laval citizens' needs,” he replied. “It's quite probable that we will need to do so. In the meantime, I'm very proud to serve in Laval with such a dynamic, engaged and committed team of police officers.”

NEW BRUNSWICK

NOVA SCOTIA Judge quashes nine police informations Published on September 24, 2013

48 Cape Breton Post SYDNEY — The Crown intends to appeal after a Nova Scotia provincial court judge quashed nine informations that were filed with the court because of the process the Cape Breton Regional Police followed in swearing them.

Judge Jean Whalen’s written in the case was released by the courts Tuesday. She gave an oral decision earlier in the month.

“We reviewed the decision … based on the decision, the Crown has made the decision to appeal at this point in time,” said Dan MacRury, chief Crown attorney for Cape Breton. “The Crown is of the opinion that the judge erred in the decision and therefore we feel it’s in the public interest to appeal.”

The matter involved nine informations involving eight people that were filed with the court by Const. Mary Gibbons, a 15-year veteran of the police service. She had testified that swearing informations had become part of her duties as early as 2009. She was directed to take the court bag and get informations sworn. She was not given step-by-step instructions.

Gibbons had no personal knowledge or reasonable and probable grounds to believe an offence had been committed by each of the defendants prior to swearing the information.

Gibbons testified that prior to swearing an information, she did not review the Crown sheet, occurrence reports or any other reports, or speak to the investigating officer. She said she believed the investigating officers had reasonable and probable grounds to believe an offence had been committed, and if not, the sergeant would have grounds.

Gibbons couldn’t say how many informations she dealt with in this way. She last swore one in June 2012.

“Const. Gibbons had no personal knowledge, nor reasonable and probable grounds to believe an offence had been committed,” Whalen wrote. "She swore a ‘false information’ and by doing so misled the justice of the peace."

Whalen’s decision noted each promise to appear seemed to be completed properly and was valid on its face. She added that her decision was not meant to impugn Gibbons’ reputation.

“However, Const. Gibbons should bear in mind that it is her oath that is being committed, not the oath of a senior officer, supervisor or investigating officer,” Whalen wrote

“Const. Gibbons should not blindly follow the instructions of a superior. At the same time, those superior officers who issue instructions for informations to be laid should bear in mind the obligation they are imposing upon the informant and should provide them with all of the information they need.”

49 Desiree Vassallo, spokeswoman for the Cape Breton Regional Police Service, said they changed their process for swearing informations about a year ago, well in advance of Whalen’s decision, when they first learned there may be a challenge. Several hundred informations were in question and, working with the local Crown attorney office, they were all amended and resworn, she said.

The police service has since assigned one officer to swearing informations.

“He reviews every file in its entirety to be able to verify that the information is accurate and true, and swear all informations before the court so that one person is handling that whole process now,” she said.

Working with the prosecutors’ office, the police service is also looking at ways of possibly swearing the files electronically.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND Police pay tribute to fallen officers who died on duty P.E.I. officers have died on duty in other provinces CBC News Posted: Sep 22, 2013 10:10 AM AT Last Updated: Sep 22, 2013 10:10 AM AT

Police and members of the public are gathering Sunday on P.E.I. to remember officers who died in the line of duty.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Ken Spenceley said while no members of P.E.I. police forces have died on duty in recent years Islanders have been killed while serving in other provinces.

He said a memorial service will honour officers across Canada.

“As we do these we recognize that from all different types of policing agencies, there are employees and peace officers who have given their lives, really made an the ultimate sacrifice in protecting Canadians and making sure law and order is maintained. So it's a very important gesture for us as serving members to remember our own fallen and also it provides an opportunity for the public to become involved,” he said.

The service takes place at 2 p.m. Sunday at the United church in O'Leary.

50 NEWFOUNDLAND

NATIONAL Commissioner Sued Again

Blacklock’s Reporter September 25, 2013 By Tom Korski

The RCMP face another federal lawsuit over alleged workplace dysfunction, this time in a case detailing what one judge called the force’s “dim” grievance procedure.

The lawsuit is the first of its kind since Parliament passed Bill C-42 granting the RCMP greater power to dismiss workplace complaints.

Staff Sergeant Walter Boogaard, a 25-year Mountie, has asked that a federal judge direct RCMP management to comply with an adjudication finding he was unfairly denied a promotion due to office gossip.

Boogaard’s counsel did not take Blacklock’s questions. And RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson’s office has declined to comment on litigation.

Boogaard has complained he was repeatedly passed over for promotion as inspector over a 2001 complaint of improper storage of a firearm. His attorneys earlier explained Boogard’s pistol was stolen from a police car and subsequently recovered from two Toronto prostitutes.

Boogaard accused his superiors of “improper conduct and abuse of authority by spreading rumours,” a complaint upheld by an RCMP adjudicator last June 19. However the commissioner continued to deny Boogaard his promotion, advising in a letter that he “explain his behaviour”, according to Court documents.

Federal Court Justice Donald Rennie earlier said the case “paints a very dim picture of what is to be an effective and quick process for the resolution of workplace disputes.”

Under Bill C-42 An Act To Amend The RCMP Act, the commissioner gained new powers to demote, suspend or fire rank-and-file members; order closed-door hearings on employee grievances; and issue rulings considered “final and binding” without appeal.

The Mounted Police Professional Association has created a defence fund financed by members’ contributions to meet legal costs of such Federal Court challenges.

51

In other recent lawsuits, one RCMP member from New Brunswick successfully contested his firing over complaints from an ex-wife that a judge described as “egregious hearsay”; and an RCMP superintendent in Ontario sued after being demoted for having an extra-marital affair, according to Federal Court records.

Feds deny plans to reintroduce lawful access legislation

Privacy advocates wary of anticipated cyberbullying bill.

The Hill Time By CHRIS PLECASH Published: Monday, 09/23/2013 12:00 am EDT Last Updated: Monday, 09/23/2013 12:57 am EDT

The federal government says it has no intention of reintroducing lawful access legislation when Parliament returns this fall, but privacy advocates are concerned that forthcoming cyberbullying legislation could be used to permit the warrantless collection of Canadians’ communications data.

The Conservatives are expected to revisit the intersection between telecommunications and law enforcement when the House returns this fall with legislation to address cyberbullying. Justice Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) has already signalled that the government plans to introduce such legislation in the forthcoming Parliamentary session.

“There are certain legislative gaps that we’ve identified in the Criminal Code that we hope to plug as soon as this fall, if we can get those amendments properly drafted and before Parliament in the coming session,” Mr. MacKay said in an Aug. 19 speech to the Canadian Bar Association, referring to a recent report on cyberbullying by a working group of federal, provincial and territorial Justice and Public Safety ministers.

In July, the group released a report on cyberbullying and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. Recommendations included updating Criminal Code laws that prohibit false messages, indecent phone calls, and harassing phone calls to include other forms of digital communication such as social media, email, and text messages.

The working group was established in response to a growing number of cases of Canadian teens committing suicide after enduring online bullying and harassment.

52 In 2011 Jamie Hubley, son of Ottawa city councillor Allan Hubley, took his own life after years of harassment at school and online. British Columbia teen Amanda Todd took her life last fall after being bullied over topless photos that were circulated online, and earlier this year, Halifax teen Rehtaeh Parsons committed suicide after photos of her being sexually assaulted were circulated online.

The report also includes recommendations to “better facilitate the investigation of criminal activity… as part of any legislative package responding to cyberbullying,” including addressing the preservation of communications data, the system for obtaining warrants and production orders for digital communications, and the introduction of “other amendments to existing offences and investigative powers that will assist in the investigation of cyberbullying and other crimes that implicate electronic evidence.”

OpenMedia spokesperson David Christopher agreed that measures are needed to address cyberbullying, but his organization wants efforts to police cybercrime and cyberbullying to be matched with a “strong pro-privacy commitment” on the part of governments.

“We would be very concerned if they proposed something like retaining data on everybody’s everyday internet or [social media] use on the off chance that someone might get charged with cyberbullying. I think that kind of mass data retention would concern many Canadians,” Mr. Christopher said.

The Conservatives failed to pass legislation enhancing law enforcement’s ability to monitor and intercept citizens’ private communications in the last Parliamentary session.

Bill C-12, the Safeguarding Canadians’ Personal Information Act, would have amended the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to allow law enforcement agencies to obtain the communications data of telecommunications customers without a warrant. Bill C-30, the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, would have similarly expanded the ability of law enforcement agencies to monitor and collect communications data without obtaining a warrant.

Both pieces of legislation were met with significant public opposition. The bills failed to make it beyond first reading in the last Parliament and died on the order paper with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) recent decision to prorogue Parliament. The fallout from former Public Safety minister Vic Toews’ statement that opponents of Bill C-30 were on the side of child pornographers may have hastened his exit from federal politics. Mr. Toews stepped down in July ahead of the Prime Minister’s most recent Cabinet shuffle.

Paloma Aguilar, Mr. MacKay’s press secretary, confirmed that the government was looking at legislation to address cyber-bullying, but denied that new

53 legislation would be introduced to expand the ability of law enforcement officers to gather private communications data without a warrant.

“[W]e have no plans to move forward with measures related to the warrantless mandatory disclosure of basic subscriber information or the requirement for telecommunications service providers to build intercept capability within their systems,” Ms. Aguilar stated in an email to The Hill Times.

David Fraser, a Halifax-based lawyer specializing in internet and privacy law, said that there likely still is a desire on the part of law enforcement and Public Safety Canada to expand its access to communications data, but he would be surprised if the Conservatives made another attempt to introduce lawful access legislation.

“I don’t expect that the impulse to come up with lawful access legislation has gone away at all, but the reception it got was profoundly negative,” Mr. Fraser said.

He disputed claims that there was a need to make it easier for law enforcement to access telecommunications data.

“Lawful access, in the form that the Conservatives introduced in the last session of Parliament, is not necessary. The warrantless access to customer information, where they would [take] an IP address and be able to identify the [internet service provider] customer associated with that IP address—I don’t think that’s necessary. They can get a production order to get that,” he said.

Mr. Christopher called previous legislative efforts to expand law enforcement’s ability to monitor communications “highly invasive” to individual privacy.

“The amount of data they would have been able to collect with no judicial oversight could really paint a very detailed picture of somebody’s life—even something as simple as collecting mobile phone metadata would have allowed the police to take the names and addresses of everybody who attended a rally on Parliament Hill or another event of interest,” Mr. Christopher said of Bill C-30. “The fact that this sort of thing would have happened without judicial oversight got a lot of people very concerned.”

The NDP supports legislation to address cyberbullying, but NDP MP Charmaine Borg (Terrebonne-Blaineville, Que.), her party’s critic for digital policy, told The Hill Times that efforts to modernize law enforcement’s ability to investigate cybercrime and bullying needed to be balanced with judicial oversight.

“Last time the Conservatives brought this up for debate in Bill C-30, they said it was time to modernize the language in the law, which is true, but inside of the bill you found provisions for warrantless access to personal information,” she said. “If

54 you’re going to give access to personal information, there need to be checks and balances in place to make sure personal information is not abused and is… actually going towards fighting crime.”

Drug-sniffing dog searches to be clarified by Supreme Court Ruling is set for tomorrow in case centring on 2 separate searches involving police sniffer dogs CBC News Posted: Sep 25, 2013 5:47 PM ET Last Updated: Sep 26, 2013 7:13 AM ET A Supreme Court of Canada ruling to be released tomorrow is expected to clarify what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity that would justify the use of a police sniffer dog.

The court has considered two cases where police didn't have much to go on before deploying drug detector dogs on men who were transporting drugs.

The first case concerns Benjamin Cain MacKenzie. In 2006, Mounties in Saskatchewan pulled him over for going 112 km/h in a 110 km/h zone. The officers noted he was sweaty, appeared nervous and had bloodshot eyes, something they said was consistent with having smoked marijuana. They testified it was also significant that MacKenzie was driving from Calgary, a city they said is a well-known source of illegal drugs.

The two Mounties conducted a police check and found nothing on MacKenzie but decided to deploy Levi, the drug detector dog they had with them that day. Levi pointed the constables to the trunk and 14 kilograms of marijuana.

The second case relates to Mandeep Singh Chelil, a man who was pinpointed in 2005 by the RCMP's Jetway Program, which helps police detect travelling drug smugglers.

Chelil exhibited a number of red flags Mounties were looking for, such as travelling alone and buying a one-way ticket with cash. Upon arrival in Halifax on a red-eye flight from Vancouver, the Mounties' sniffer dog Boris pointed out Chelil's suitcase, which contained more than three kilograms of cocaine.

The questions for the Supreme Court are whether police breached the two men's charter rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and if their cases met the "reasonable suspicion" threshold for deploying a sniffer dog.

'Reasonable suspicion'

"Trying to define what reasonable suspicion means is incredibly important because with reasonable suspicion, the officer does not need a warrant to search you and that's the key," said Carissima Mathen, an Ottawa University law professor.

55 The way things stand now, Mathen said, reasonable suspicion is open to broad interpretation that can lead to arbitrary applications of the law.

"These are the cases where the drugs have been identified. The cases where the innocent person is randomly searched and nothing turns up, they don't get before the courts. So there's that little bit of tension but we can never forget that these cases are likely the minority."

At trial, MacKenzie and Chelil were acquitted. In each case, the judges ruled the police did not have reasonable, objective grounds to search the two men.

And at Chelil's trial, evidence was raised about the dog's reliability. The dog at the Halifax International Airport detected cocaine in Chelil's bag but got it wrong when it pointed to another passenger's luggage that did not contain drugs.

On appeal though, both acquittals were overturned, with the judges disagreeing with the lower courts and finding the Mounties did have reasonable suspicion to deploy the dogs.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

The Record: County police merger: Jonah in the whale

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2013 THE RECORD BERGEN COUNTY has too many law enforcement departments: municipal police departments where there can be more supervisors than beat cops, some top cops' salaries dwarfing the governor's annual compensation, a county Police Department and a county Sheriff's Office. Consolidation is needed. Yet we are cautious to embrace the current plan offered by Democratic freeholders.

For starters, the plan was rolled out at the Democrats' party headquarters, less than two months before Election Day. The timing and the location are hardly accidental. The consolidation or merger of the county police with the Sheriff's Office is not exactly a consolidation or a merger. The Police Department will be swallowed whole like Jonah in the belly of a whale. The whale would be the county sheriff.

County residents should be wary of any plan that puts so much power into the hands of the sheriff, regardless of who that sheriff is. At present, it is Republican Michael Saudino, who wants the Bergen County Police under his control. He also has been battling County Executive Kathleen Donovan, a Republican. The

56 Freeholder Board, now controlled by Democrats, wants to eliminate the county police as a separate entity; Donovan does not.

There is no easy solution here. And the solution will be driven by politics as much as, or perhaps more than, by good policy. On a practical level, local towns are disinclined to give up their police forces. A few are willing, but the vast majority will cling to them and high property taxes regardless of logic. So it is not the idea of eliminating the county police that is most troubling. It is a plan, which promises to save either $90.6 million or $200.4 million over 25 years without eliminating many employees or dramatically changing the county department, that smells rank.

Proponents of the plan claim attrition will reduce the force and new hires will be paid at the lower sheriff's officer pay scale. This is a 25-year plan to lower costs. Can anyone plan out the policing needs of Bergen County 25 years from now? The $90.6 million scenario would result in savings of $3.6 million a year. The county budget adopted this year was nearly $500 million. Less than $4 million in savings is not a staggering savings.

Competing plans for merging the county police into the Sheriff's Office or encouraging local towns to eliminate their police forces in favor of the county police have been discussed and researched for years. At some point, freeholders have to make a decision, and if it is the wrong one, they will pay the political price.

Whatever freeholders do, taxpayers will pay the literal price. The most sensible solution will never be adopted on a wide scale in Bergen County: the elimination of many small municipal police departments. That points to the elimination or merger of the county police into the Sheriff's Office as more doable. But it makes no sense to do that if the plan does not result in real substantial savings and an elimination of redundant positions and departments and, of most importance, if that plan sets the stage for a single elected official – the county sheriff – to build a political and job-offering base that will skew the balance of power from the freeholders and the county executive to his or her office.

The freeholders, with their announcement at party headquarters, are making a political statement first and a public policy decision second. That should make all Bergen County residents nervous.

Surat police's Setu mobile app a hit in floods Yagnesh Mehta, TNN Sep 25, 2013, 06.40AM IST

SURAT: City police's mobile application Setu has turned out to be a major hit during the recent floods caused by Tapi. Over 6,000 citizens have installed it in their mobile phones or smart pads in the past two days. Police believe the application has received good response due to regular update of information by them about the floods.

57 The application was downloaded by at least 5,000 users till Sunday. However, by Tuesday evening, the number of its users crossed the 11,000 mark. The application was downloaded by 3,500 users on Monday and 2,500 users on Tuesday.

Setu, designed and developed to receive and share information related to crime and policing, started sharing information about rain and the river's situation since Monday. The application shared updated information throughout the day about the inflow and the outflow of water from Ukai dam. Information about the water level of the river at various locations was also shared.

One of the benefits of the application, which made it popular among the people, was clarifications through it about the rumours making round in the city. There were clarifications put out to the queries from its users with regard to rising water level of the river at a few areas in the city, discontinuation of gas and electricity supplies etc.

"Users continued to send us queries throughout the day on Monday. We checked them with respective authorities and then put out clarifications on the application. This helped us to check rumour mongering. The application has received good response due to updated information and clarifications on rumours. The application was managed from our control room," said Rakesh Asthana, city police commissioner, Surat.

Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) is also sharing information on floods with the citizens through its mobile application. SMC is giving regular update on water discharge and Tapi's water level. It also shared rainfall data of the city. Policing & Crime Prevention Transit police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have placed a cardboard cutout of a police officer near the bicycle cage at a high traffic subway and bus station. Officials state that the fake cop has helped to cut bike thefts by 67 percent over a five-week period. Besides fooling opportunistic thieves in the first instance, the cutout is thought to also serve as a psychological deterrent; the paper cop stares directly at the offender at the critical moment that they are deciding whether to do something illegal. It has also helped save the city from devoting full-time police resources to patrol the area. The city may deploy more cutout cops to other high crime areas if the program is successful.

Toward improved police community relations Baystatebanner.com 9/25/2013, 12:59 p.m. (Boston)There is an inherent conflict between the residents of a high-crime neighborhood and the municipal police. Boston has not been immune to this tension. Some residents insist that police protection is inadequate while others complain that the police presence is oppressive. Both perspectives become grist for the political mill during a mayoral election campaign. In addition, the

58 Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers (MAMLEO) has been at odds with Police Commissioner Edward Davis.

In New York City, differing positions on the city’s “stop-and-frisk” policy became dispositive. In Boston, MAMLEO attempted to tarnish Davis’ reputation by asserting that he is a racist. Candidates for mayor were then asked whether or not they planned to retain Davis as commissioner. For some people this even became a campaign issue.

There is scant evidence to charge Davis with racial discrimination. During Davis’ service in Boston, as well as in Lowell, no court has issued a final determination that he is guilty of racial discrimination. Such a serious accusation of racism brought against a public official should be objectively established before fair- minded people will believe it.

In an earlier editorial the Banner suggested that the problem stemmed in part from the high failure rate of black police officers on the civil service exams. MAMLEO should establish an effective prep program to train their members to perform well on the next sergeant exam. A MAMLEO supporter insists that the organization has a training program. That is indeed disturbing. Only 71 percent of the blacks who took the last test scored a passing grade compared with 93 percent of the whites, and no blacks scored in the top 10 percent. The unavoidable conclusion is that the MAMLEO training program is flawed, there was too much absenteeism or the candidates were unable to learn.

The primary election is over but the final election looms ahead. In this period of uncertainty, Davis has decided to pursue other professional opportunities. It is time for MAMLEO to use its resources to help establish better police-community relations and to prepare their members for advancement and promotion.

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis resigns Banner Staff | 9/26/2013, 6 a.m. Baystatebanner.com In his retirement announcement on Monday, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said the city should change the way that officers are hired and promoted in order to increase the number of police of color in the upper ranks of the department.

The Civil Service Exam determines who will become a police officer and who within the ranks will be promoted to sergeant, lieutenant and captain. That’s the law. But at his press conference, Davis — who promoted officers of color but has also been criticized for not promoting enough — said the civil service law should be changed.

“We are swimming upstream against the law here in Massachusetts,” he said. “I would recommend that the media and that all of the people in this organization, especially whoever succeeds me in this position, keep diversity high on the list of

59 priorities ... by changing the law and making sure this police department is reflective of the community it serves.”

Police Superintendent William Gross agreed. As the night commander of the Boston Police Department, Gross is one of the few African Americans in a leadership position with the BPD. Gross said the problem with the Civil Service Exam is that it does not measure street smarts.

“You read material, you remember it, and then you take a written exam,” he said. “There’s great leaders, and you can pick that without an exam process.”

Gross credited Davis with promoting him and other officers of color but says the Civil Service Exam system is outmoded and has left the upper ranks of the BPD nearly empty of blacks, Latinos, Asians and women. Davis leaves a department with white males occupying all 21 district captain and temporary captain positions and 42 of the 48 lieutenant positions.

The greatest beneficiaries of affirmation action within the Boston police department at the moment are not officers of color, but military veterans. A military veteran with a passing test score of 70 is weighed over and above a nonveteran with a score of 100 — no matter the nonveteran’s color, ethnicity or gender.

Davis said that whoever succeeds him will need to work hard to make the character and color of the Boston Police Department reflect the changing demographics of the city.

He submitted his resignation to Mayor Thomas M. Menino Sunday, just two days before the preliminary election that will bring the city of Boston one step closer to having a new mayor.

Menino’s office released a statement Sunday, stating: “The Mayor will continue to work … to make sure there is a smooth transition as a new mayor comes into office to find their own permanent police commissioner.”

Davis served as commissioner for the last seven years and was thrust into the national spotlight during the days that followed the Boston Marathon bombings in April.

Before serving as commissioner in Boston, Davis was the Lowell, Mass., police superintendent and served in that police force for the better part of 30 years. But where will he go next?

Through a spokesperson, he says his plans are unclear so far. People close to him say he may do some teaching at a local college. And then there’s the speculation he may serve the Obama administration as the next secretary of Homeland Security.

Davis was both defiant and emotional as he announced his resignation. “Those who know me know that I will never run away from a challenge or adversity,” he

60 said. “I leave on my own accord. … I’m very comfortable with my decision. I want to clear the deck for the new administration that’s coming in.”

Davis became the subject of the mayoral debate as six of the 12 mayoral candidates said they would keep Davis in his job while the other remained undecided. “I’ve been here seven years,” Davis said. “That’s about twice as long as an average urban police chief. But I know … that it is time to go, to leave this department in better shape than I found it and to leave it in the hands of the very capable people who stand behind me.”

Las Vegas Police Protective Association wins raises in arbitration September 25, 2013 - 5:37pm Updated September 25, 2013 - 8:33pm

By BEN BOTKIN and COLTON LOCHHEAD LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL The Las Vegas Police Protective Association, which represents rank-and-file officers, on Wednesday won an arbitration award that hands officers two separate salary increases and a higher employer contribution for health insurance plans.

The award represents an estimated $10 million increase in salary and benefits costs for the Police Department, said Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie. The ruling will benefit about 2,800 Metropolitan Police Department and Clark County Detention Center officers.

The arbitrator’s decision, which officials received Wednesday, gives officers a 0.75 percent wage increase effective July 1, 2013. A second wage increase of 0.75 percent will kick in on Jan. 1, 2014.

The department’s contribution to each employee’s hospitalization and health insurance plan premium will increase about 14 percent, from $8,572.73 annually to $9,726.62, under the ruling.

Gillespie said he’s still reviewing the numbers with staff and discussing how to cover the cost. He’s not anticipating the city of Las Vegas or Clark County to foot the bill, though.

“It’s a $10 million increase from a salary and benefits standpoint,” he said. “The city and county have made it pretty clear to me moving toward arbitration that if the award did come back in favor of the PPA, we would not receive additional funds from them.”

Police union Executive Director Chris Collins called the ruling a “fair award.”

“We understand the economy is just now recovering,” Collins said. “We weren’t going to ask for anything that would jeopardize the financial health of the county, city, or Metro.”

61

Police and correctional officers haven’t received a raise in five years, Collins said, noting they instead have made contract concessions in that time period.

After looking at more recent economic numbers, Collins said it was time to push for the slight increase.

“A small increase of pay was warranted, and the arbitrator agreed with us,” he said.

For the officers who will see the increase, it could be a sign of things returning to normal, Collins said.

“This is the first raise they’ve gotten in five years. Maybe in the future, if the economy continues to recover, they could look forward to more raises.”

Collins said the three-day arbitration in September was very professional with no animosity or ill will between the two sides.

The news of the award, dated Monday, comes at a high-profile time for the Metropolitan Police Department’s budget. Clark County commissioners on Tuesday will decide on a proposed “More Cops” sales tax increase to pay for officers in the Metropolitan Police Department and police departments in North Las Vegas, Henderson, Mesquite and Boulder City.

There are two More Cops proposals. One would increase the 8.1 percent sales tax rate by 0.15-percentage points to 8.25 percent. The other proposal is half that amount, a 0.075 percentage-point increase.

That debate has plenty of sticking points. Some commissioners want the Metropolitan Police Department to help bridge its budget gap, which Gillespie estimates at $30 million, by tapping into the More Cops account, which has about $124 million from a quarter-cent sales tax for officers that started in 2005. That tax has funded about 520 Las Vegas officers.

Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak, also a member of the Police Department’s Fiscal Affairs Committee, said the arbitration award gives the sheriff something more he’ll need to justify to the public.

‘The general public is saying they don’t want to be paying more taxes when people are getting raises,” said Sisolak, who has opposed raising the sales tax rate.

Commissioner Tom Collins is pushing for a 0.15 percent sales tax rate increase. That’s the full amount the Legislature authorized the county to enact after Gillespie lobbied lawmakers to enact a second 0.25-percentage point sales tax increase. In an advisory vote in 2004, Clark County residents supported a full 0.5-percentage point increase in the sales tax rate for officers. Lawmakers in 2005 allowed the county to enact just half that amount.

62 Collins said a smaller 0.075 percentage-point increase isn’t enough to provide departments with the staffing they need.

Collins also has said it’s important to avoid the potential impact the tourism economy would suffer with fewer officers to keep streets safe.

Arbitrator: Chicago cops owed $1 million for NATO summit OT BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter September 25, 2013 10:45AM

Chicago Sun-Times Updated: September 26, 2013 2:17AM

Cash-strapped Chicago must pay $1 million in disputed overtime to 3,100 Chicago Police officers who protected the city during last year’s NATO Summit, an independent arbitrator has ruled.

Arbitrator Steven M. Bierig handed Fraternal Order of Police President Mike Shields a victory just when he needed it most — after apologizing to his membership for a paperwork mistake that threatens to cost rank-and-file Chicago Police officers their automatic right to a retroactive pay raise in 2012.

At issue is one of four class-action grievances filed by the FOP after a deftly handled summit of world leaders that could have been a disaster for Chicago, but instead gave the city a chance to shine on the world stage.

The dispute stemmed from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision not to pay officers time-and-a-half overtime pay.

The contract “unambiguously provides that an officer who works six or seven consecutive days in a work week shall be paid overtime for work performed on the sixth and seventh days,” Bierig ruled this week.

“The city violated the contract by failing to pay overtime to officers who worked a sixth or seventh day during the week of May 20,” 2012.

The Chicago Police Lieutenants’ Association contract has language that mirrors the FOP contract on time-and-a-half compensation for working a sixth or seventh consecutive day. In March, an arbitrator ruled against the city in the lieutenants’ quest for NATO overtime.

The FOP accused the city in June of concealing the lieutenants ruling in a “100 percent unethical” attempt to “screw Chicago Police officers out of $1 million.”

As it turned out, the city’s failure to disclose the lieutenants ruling to the FOP didn’t matter. Bierig was aware of it. In fact, he cited it in his own ruling.

63 City Hall had argued that, if an officer was paid overtime to work on a regular day off that had been canceled, paying that same officer time-and-a-half for working a sixth and seventh work day would be “pyramiding or payment of double overtime.”

City attorneys further argued that the same policy has been followed for other special events, including Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Marathon.

But Bierig ruled that the police contract “does not provide an exception for payment of sixth and seventh day overtime in weeks when officers are paid overtime for canceled regular days off.”

During the NATO Summit, Police Supt. Garry McCarthy canceled days off and ordered all 3,100 officers to work 12-hour shifts to devote extraordinary police resources to the gathering of world leaders and still provide a 15 percent increase in neighborhood police protection.

The NATO overtime tiff is certain to exacerbate tensions between the city and the FOP more than a year after the union’s contract with the city expired.

Shields said the overtime dispute should have been resolved before arbitration.

“I personally requested on several occasions that the superintendent grant this grievance,” Shields said of McCarthy, whose frontline leadership in helping to diffuse a potentially volatile confrontation with Black Bloc provocateurs turned him into a Chicago folk hero.

“Police officers who were out there doing the hard work were upset that they did not get their overtime pay and that the superintendent was taking all of the accolades. This is an issue that left a bad taste in police officers’ mouths in regard to their superintendent.”

The Chicago Sun-Times reported in March that Emanuel was using an embarrassing paperwork mistake that Shields made last year to deny rank-and- file police officers of their automatic right to a retroactive pay raise in 2012.

The move was widely viewed as the mayor’s attempt to get even with Shields for working to torpedo a four-year contract with police sergeants — tied to pension and retiree health-care reform — that Emanuel had hoped to use a road map to solve the city’s pension crisis.

Last month, Shields suffered a major blow in his effort to recoup from the paperwork mistake when the executive director of the Illinois Labor Relations Board dismissed the unfair labor practices complaint he filed against the city. Unfair labor practices complaints must be filed within six months of the alleged unlawful conduct. Like the contract termination letter, the complaint was filed too late.

64 Raising the public’s confidence in police

The Charlotte Observer Posted: Tuesday, Sep. 24, 2013 It has taken 16 years and 79 disputed cases, but Charlotte’s toothless board for reviewing alleged police misconduct might finally get some teeth.

A City Council committee on Monday backed a dozen recommendations regarding the Citizens Review Board, and the full City Council could adopt the changes in November. They go a long way – though not far enough – toward building public confidence that allegations of police misconduct will be thoroughly vetted and fairly resolved.

“0-78.”

That stark Observer headline in February summarized the story: 78 times residents had complained to the CRB that they had been wronged by police; 78 times the CRB sided with police. In 74 cases, the complainant didn’t even get a hearing.

Probably the biggest factor behind those numbers? The unusually high bar citizens had to clear even to have their complaint heard. The ordinance that created the CRB dictated that “a preponderance of the evidence” had to show that the police chief had committed an “abuse of discretion” in how he disciplined (or didn’t discipline) the officer.

It is one of the strictest standards among the country’s 100-plus review boards. And it is that extremely high standard, CRB lawyer Julian Wright argued, that largely accounted for citizens’ 0-78 record before the board. Change the standard, Wright suggested, and you change the outcome of some cases.

Now, the City Council appears poised to ease the standard to hold a full hearing to “substantial evidence that an error occurred in the investigation of the citizen’s complaint or the disciplinary decision concerning the officer.” That lower standard is appropriate, and gives the citizen a fighting chance.

To be sure, a tiny percentage of police actions are at issue here. Officers act appropriately under trying conditions every day. When they don’t, they are typically disciplined.

From 2004 to 2011, more than 3,500 allegations of police misconduct were filed with CMPD. Internal Affairs found misconduct in more than 2,100 cases. They levied more than 500 suspensions, 54 firings and more than 900 written reprimands.

Now and then, however, citizens believe Internal Affairs has not given them a fair review. That’s where a robust Citizens Review Board comes in. Besides changing the standard of review, the City Council might also give the CRB the authority to question the accused officer directly. The council is also likely to raise

65 the visibility and transparency of the board through a dedicated website and other avenues.

The council committee on Monday stopped short of full reform, accepting a task force recommendation not to give the CRB broad subpoena power or authority to launch its own investigations. Task force members said that would require legislative approval, which could delay reform. The City Council should enact most changes while simultaneously seeking Raleigh’s permission for others. Subpoena power, in particular, could give the board the authority it needs to fully review an Internal Affairs decision.

The Citizens Review Board has failed in one key regard. It was created in 1997, after three officer shootings of unarmed residents, to reassure skeptical residents that they were on a balanced playing field with police. Sixteen years later, many residents still believe that field is tilted. This time, the City Council has a chance to get it right.

Predicting the Epicenter of Crime: Analytics Tool Cuts Crime Rates A predictive policing tool in use in the U.S. and abroad helps law enforcement predict crime in the same way that geologists predict earthquakes. BY JOHN TWACHTMAN / SEPTEMBER 23, 2013 Govtech.com

With the right kind of data analytics, geologists can predict earthquakes. Turns out those same principles can be applied to predicting crime. That concept has been turned into an analytics tool that is now being used by more than 20 police departments in the U.S. and one in the United Kingdom.

Chief of R&D and co-founder of predictive policing company PredPol Jeffrey Brantingham explained the comparison to Government Technology. “Look at earthquakes. You have a complex terrain that has faults all over the place. … Big ones, small ones, and they tend to generate earthquakes at a known rate. … And when you have those earthquakes on those faults, they produce lots of aftershocks.”

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Data Analytics Help Michigan Police Cut Crime Brantingham said that crime follows a similar pattern. “The mathematical architecture being used to study crime is closely related to what you can use to study earthquakes.”

Brantingham said that there are features in the environment that, by their nature, are prone to crime, much like faults are to earthquakes. “A shopping mall is a great example. It’s a standing crop of cars to be stolen or to be broken into. It’s not going anywhere. It’s like a big fault that produces earthquakes at a regular clip.”

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Crimes also tend to produce “aftershocks,” as criminals tend to be creatures of habit and return to the same locations where they found previous success. “So you get these after-crimes that occur near in space and near in time to previous crimes.”

PredPol takes that information – what crime is being committed, when and where it happens – and applies mathematical algorithms, and uses it as the basis to forecast where crime will happen in the future. The concept grew out of using hot spots to track where crime is occurring (where you map crime over long intervals to see where it is concentrated to aid in the allocation of resources). But PredPol cuts down the reaction time to changes in crime patterns that might not be readily apparent by simply looking at hot spots marked on a map, thus allowing for a more real-time reaction to changes in the crime landscape.

But while the tool is about predicting crime, Brantingham also pointed out that this is not a profiling tool to identify who is committing crimes.

“We’re actually not saying anything about who, we are saying something about where and when crime is most likely to occur regardless of who may or may not be prone to commit those crimes,” he said.

SUCCESS IN THE FIELD For the Santa Cruz, Calif., Police Department, statistics show an overall decline in crime in targeted areas. From 2011, when PredPol was implemented to 2012, burglaries declined 22 percent, robberies declined 27 percent, assaults were down 9 percent and arrests were up 56 percent while auto theft recovery improved by 22 percent. Available year-to-date totals through August 2013 show robberies down 4 percent and assaults down 11 percent, and though burglaries are up 7 percent for the year so far, they have seen a decrease in recent months.

Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark noted that crime patterns are dynamic, but having PredPol allows for more real-time reaction to those changing patterns. He also suggested that the big drop from 2011 to 2012 accounted for the “low-hanging fruit” and expects the reductions to be less dramatic in years to come.

Clark noted that his department was an early partner of PredPol, helping validate the predictive modeling algorithms. He approached the company after reading an article about their research, hopeful it could help in Santa Cruz, particularly as the department was facing more calls for service and a decrease in “unobligated minutes” when officers can patrol while not on a call.

Faced with static resources, Clark said the department recognized that it needed to be more effective with its unobligated minutes to help keep communities safe and maintain quality-of-life standards.

The Tacoma, Wash., Police Department also is seeing a positive impact following the start of a year-long beta test that began March 1, 2013, though no statistics are yet available.

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Speaking on the decision to use the tool, Assistant Chief Pete Cribbin noted that in 2005, the Tacoma Police Department began strategic planning activities, one of which was to find ways to leverage data for more effective policing.

“The police department was collecting enormous amounts of data but not effectively using [it] in crime prevention efforts,” Cribbin said. “The goal was to become a data-driven organization with real-time data available to all officers, investigators and command staff.” He noted that hot spot mapping and other tools were previously employed and PredPol has become an extension of those earlier efforts.

Tacoma Police Department Crime Analyst Megan Yerxa added that officers “have the ability to look at PredPol on their smartphones and laptops in real time and make adjustments as needed. It provides a much more focused way of policing that shifts the efforts beyond responding to crime to proactively preventing it by policing the probabilities for crime.” The department is currently using PredPol to target property crime, including residential burglary, commercial burglary, motor vehicle theft, vehicle prowls and robbery.

Cribbin anecdotally noted that because of adding the PredPol analytics tool, “we have had several successes of catching the offender ‘red-handed’ and making arrests.”

Santa Cruz’s Clark also pointed to some residual benefits in changing officer habits.

“Every officer out there knows a spot on their beat where they can go right now and arrest somebody,” Clark said. However, “it’s not really addressing some of the core issues that are relating to these other crimes that we are targeting in this. … It gives you a more purpose-based strategy as you go out there as an officer each day.”

And Clark was emphatic in stating that PredPol is a tool to enhance the work that officers do.

“This is not a substitute for your experience, your knowledge, your good old- fashioned gut sense of things,” he said. “This is here to help enhance that.”

Boston’s Police Chief Plans to Step Aside

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JESS BIDGOOD Published: September 23, 2013 The New York Times

BOSTON — Edward Davis, the Boston police commissioner who rose to national prominence after the marathon bombings in April, said Monday that he was stepping down from his job in the next month or two.

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The announcement touched off speculation that he might be in line for a higher post, perhaps at the Department of Homeland Security, which has been without a leader since Secretary Janet Napolitano left earlier this month.

But Mr. Davis, 57, told a packed news conference at police headquarters here that he was leaving simply because “it’s time to go.” He said that he would not engage in speculation about his future but that he had received “several offers” and it would take him a couple of months to sort them out. He has also been offered a fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics and hopes to accept it.

Mr. Davis said his seven years as commissioner was twice the typical tenure of urban police commissioners. He also said he wanted to “clear the deck for the new administration.” The city is preparing to elect a replacement for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who appointed Mr. Davis in 2006 and is stepping aside early next year after 20 years as mayor.

The commissioner’s tenure has been an issue in the mayor’s race, with several of the dozen candidates saying he has not placed enough minority officers or women in the top ranks of the department. He defended his record Monday, saying 42 percent of his command staff were “people of color and diversity,” but he also said he had been hamstrung by certain court rulings. He urged the next mayor to “keep diversity high on the list of priorities” and “make sure this police department is reflective of the community it serves.”

Mr. Davis drew wide praise for his role in the police response to the Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 260 on April 15.

His announcement on Monday came on the same day that lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the bombings, appeared in court to try to prevent their client from facing the death penalty.

Mr. Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty in July to a sweeping federal terrorism indictment; 17 of its 30 charges could mean life in prison or the death penalty if he is convicted.

During a status conference on Monday, which he did not attend, his lawyers, who include the death penalty experts Miriam Conrad and Judy Clarke, asked Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. of Federal District Court for more time to make a case that the government should not seek the death penalty. Ms. Conrad said prosecutors had yet to give her team grand jury testimony that she said could be “exculpatory.”

William Weinreb, an assistant United States attorney, said prosecutors planned to submit their recommendation on whether to seek the death penalty to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Oct. 31, which is also expected to include the mitigating arguments from Mr. Tsarnaev’s defense team. Mr. Holder will then have 90 days to make a final recommendation. A trial could begin early next year.

69 Ms. Clarke said it was too early to say whether her team would seek a change of venue for the trial; so far, proceedings have taken place in Boston’s federal courthouse, less than two miles from the marathon finish line, where the bombs exploded.

How Would Native Americans Have Rated the Police (If They’d Been Asked)?

By Daniel Person Fri., Sep 20 2013 Seattle Weekly

Earlier this week, the federal monitoring team overseeing Seattle police reforms release the stark findings of a survey measuring public perception of our local boys in blue.

Most notable about the study was the finding that only 35 percent of those surveyed thought Seattle police treated people of all races and groups equally. Early on, the authors of the study note that the minorities the public thinks cops treat unfairly are blacks, Latinos and American Indians. And while that was just the start of the 18-page report’s discussion of policing and Seattle’s black and Latino community, it was pretty much the only mention given to Seattle’s Indian community.

That was likely a statistical issue: While 15 percent of the survey respondents were black or Latino, only 1 percent were Native American (according to the Census, Indians likewise make up 1 percent of Seattle’s population.)

Still, in a discussion about police relations with minorities, the lack of information about Native Americans is glaring given the community’s recent history with SPD: It was just over three years ago that John T. Williams, a native woodcarver hard of hearing, was shot and killed by police after he failed to put down his carving knife. That shooting played a major role in the Department of Justice’s decision to open a civil rights investigation into SPD’s use of force. The investigation eventually led to, among other things, the oversight committee that commissioned the study released this week.

But that wasn’t the end of Native Americans’ deadly encounters with police. In February, Jack Sun Keewatinawin was shot and killed in Greenwood after family called police because he was having a schizophrenic episode. Police were cleared in the shooting, saying he raised a piece of rebar in a threatening manner, but his family contends it was unwarranted.

Chris Stearns, a Native American and former chairman of Seattle Human Rights Commission, says he was unsatisfied with, if not surprised by, the lean mentions of Native Americans in the report.

“Almost to a person, we feel invisible,” Stearns says about Native Americans. “Every once in a while, we’ll get a heritage month, but that’s it.

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“I don’t think it’s that hard to go interview Native American people. If you’re doing random calling, you’re less likely (to speak with a Native American), but at the end of the day, when you talk about community perceptions, there’s no excuse not to talk to Native American communities.”

Had the Native American community been surveyed, Stearns says, the perceptions of police discrimination would have likely been more severe than those found among other minorities.

For example, the survey found that 36 percent of African Americans and 41 percent of Latinos knew someone who was “experienced racially different treatment.”

“I’m almost positive that if they interviewed Native Americans, that number would have been higher,” he says.

Stearns emphasized that, by turning their attention to minority perceptions of policing, Native Americans stand to benefit (“We’re only going to get help if we help others. We’re only going to do better when our brothers and sisters do better”).

That said, he said the shooting of Williams underscores the unique problems faced by Native Americans, saying that many are carvers who carry their tools.

“It comes down to cultural competency. That’s important,” he said.

UPDATE: Asked about Native Americans and the survey, Police Assessment Resource Center, which commissioned the study, said in a statement that while the statistics did not allow the study to draw conclusions about Native American perceptions about police, the fact that 48 percent of all respondents said they didn’t feel Native Americans were treated fairly by police warrants further review.

“These results will intensify our focus on the Native American population in our future research and analysis,” police monitor Merrick Bobb said.

Police experts dig into the new policies for Seattle cops

BY CHRIS SULLIVAN September 20, 2013 Seattle Weekly

There are changes coming to the Seattle Police use-of-force policy, and the manual has gone from five to seventy pages.

The police guild thinks some of those changes might put officers at risk, so KIRO Radio asked experts from around the country about the dangers.

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Eugene O'Donnell was an NYPD officer before becoming a lawyer and a police trainer. He's now a police policies professor at John Jay College in New York.

He said officers need to follow the rules, but many of their decisions on the street are based on feel and experience. "The idea that you can write your way to a police department that's going to be more restrained is a dubious proposition," he said.

O'Donnell said it's a good thing that SPD will be spelling out all the do's and the do not's in this new use-of-force manual because officers need to be reminded and trained about what's appropriate.

"If you're hitting somebody, using force to punish, that's inappropriate," O'Donnell said. "That's a clear line, but it's hard sometimes to be mindful of it, but that's the rule. That's the law. That has to be followed. You use as much force as you need to protect yourself, to affect an arrest or stop somebody from escaping, but you as a police person have no authorization whatsoever to be punishing people. Punishment is for the courts."

John Caparelli spent 20 of his 27 years in the LAPD working the streets. He was involved in the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery shootout where body- armor-wearing suspects injured 11 officers and 7 civilians in a firefight. He also penned "Uniform Decisions: My Life in the LAPD and the North Hollywood Shootout."

He's not too sure about the new Seattle Police policy that considers simply pointing a weapon at someone as a reportable use of force.

"You're going to have officers trying to second-guess whether they should pull their weapon or not because they're going to be listed as using force, and that can be dangerous," he said. "I just don't get it. I don't understand that right there."

Caparelli is also concerned that a lengthy manual could make officers hesitate. "You can't be thinking 'OK hold on what can I do here.'"

Caparelli and O'Donnell believe the police do need to behave better than the rest of the public. Society gives them guns and power, and they need to use it wisely and appropriately because, as O'Donnell said, public perception and confidence in the police is essential.

"We want them to think that when the police come that they enforce the law," he said. "They have restraint. They're professional. They use a minimum amount of force, and they have pride in the job, that they're not going to climb in the gutter and go after people that are doing serious crime and get down to their level and break the law like they are."

The new Seattle Police use-of-force guidelines should go into effect in November.

72 Poll: Gun violence, mental illness connected

The poll says 80 percent of Americans identify mental illness as to blame for gun violence. Politico.com

By TAL KOPAN | 9/20/13 6:11 AM EDT More Americans believe mental illness is a great deal to blame for gun violence than any other factor, including access to guns, according to a new poll, and support for stricter gun laws is below 50 percent.

Forty-eight percent of those surveyed blamed mental illness a great deal in the Gallup poll released Friday, the same number as a poll taken just after a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., at then-Rep. Gabby Giffords’s congressional event.

The number who blame easy access to guns a great deal for shootings, however, has decreased 6 points since January 2011, to 40 percent. Drug use was blamed next, at 37 percent, a drop of 5 points, and violent movies, video games and music was at 32 percent.

When the number of people who blame each cause includes both those who blame it a great deal and those who blame it a fair amount, 80 percent of Americans identify mental illness as to blame for gun violence. Easy access to guns drops to third place, at 61 percent, behind drug use, 66 percent, as a perceived cause.

The poll was taken this week in the aftermath of a shooting at Washington, D.C.’s Navy Yard that killed 12 people and the gunman.

While support for stricter gun laws has grown since 2011, it has dropped significantly since a poll taken in the aftermath of a mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., at an elementary school last year.

In Friday’s poll, 49 percent said gun laws should be more strict, while 13 percent said they should be less strict. In December 2012, after Newtown, 58 percent said gun laws should be more strict and 6 percent said they should be less strict.

The numbers reflect a lack of will on the Hill to use Monday’s Navy Yard shooting to begin another debate on gun control like was seen after Newtown.

Gallup surveyed 1,023 adults from Sept. 17 to 18 for the poll, which has an error margin of plus-minus 4 percentage points.

73 Terrorism, cyber crime and budget woes face new FBI director

By Michael Doyle | McClatchy Washington Bureau WASHINGTON — Big budget woes worry new FBI Director James Comey, a mere two weeks into the hassle-filled job of a lifetime.

The special agent training pipeline is empty, curtailed by prior economizing. By Oct. 1, Comey must find an additional $800 million or so in budget savings, out of a total annual FBI budget of about $8.1 billion. Layoffs and furloughs appear inevitable.

“I’m not playing a game,” Comey told reporters Thursday. “I’m not crying wolf.”

Nor are budget problems the only ones to confront the new director since he was sworn in on Sept. 4, following his breezy Senate confirmation on a 93-1 vote.

Special agents are now scrambling to understand the shooting deaths Monday of 12 individuals by a contractor at the Washington Navy Yard. The bureau is facing a scathing new American Civil Liberties Union report into the alleged “unchecked abuse of authority.”

It’s also facing heat from the inside, too, as a Justice Department Office of Inspector General report issued Thursday criticized the actions of several FBI field offices.

“One of the challenges of this job is your in-box can come to dominate your life,” Comey said.

Like his predecessor, Robert Mueller, who took office a week before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Comey is continuing to identify counterterrorism and cyber crime as the bureau’s top priorities. But shortly before he retired, Mueller acknowledged that his successor would inherit some “hard choices” on the budget.

And it’s the budget that’s really nagging the 53-year-old former federal prosecutor.

“I got briefed on that before I started,” Comey said. “I was very surprised to learn how severe the potential cut is.”

Like other federal agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is now fiscally handcuffed by a budget mechanism called the sequester. Originally intended by Congress and President Barack Obama as a threat to force tough deficit- reduction decisions, the sequester has instead taken effect and begun imposing automatic across-the-board cuts.

74 Over the next decade, the automatic cuts are estimated to reduce federal spending by about $1 trillion. Most Justice Department agencies would, like the FBI, shoulder cuts of 8.2 percent.

“It didn’t make sense before I was sworn in, and it still doesn’t make sense to me,” Comey said. “To get to where I need to be, I need to eliminate a bunch of positions, and then we’re faced with a furlough.”

The bureau grew immensely in both staff and funding during the past 12 years under Mueller. In fiscal 2001, it had a budget of $3.3 billion and a staff of about 27,000. By fiscal 2012, the bureau’s budget was $8.1 billion and the staff has expanded to more than 34,000 employees.

Comey indicated that he may have to “cut 3,000 positions,” as well as impose unpaid furloughs of up to two weeks on remaining employees to meet the sequester demands. He declined to spotlight specific programs where the potential cuts might hit.

“I don’t want to talk in particular, because I don’t want the bad guys to know,” Comey said.

Comey will eventually face some key administrative decisions. One could be finding a replacement for the brutal-looking J. Edgar Hoover Building, the bureau’s headquarters, on Pennsylvania Avenue.

But it was the Navy Yard shootings that were on his mind this week. Comey reviewed videos and met with the FBI special agents who are investigating the incident. While he cautioned that “we’re trying to better understand” the mental status of the slain alleged shooter, Aaron Alexis, Comey said investigators have determined there was “no connection” to terrorism.

Comey also shed further light on what happened after Alexis entered the Navy Yard on Monday morning, saying that he entered a fourth-floor bathroom carrying a bag and emerged brandishing a cut-down Remington 870 shotgun. When he appeared to run out of shotgun ammo, Comey said, Alexis began shooting with a Beretta handgun he had taken from a security officer he had shot.

“It appears to me he was wandering the halls, hunting people to shoot,” Comey said.

Comey did not discuss the new inspector general report during his hour-long meeting with reporters, but he said he welcomed the criticism leveled by the ACLU in its separate assessment of bureau practices since the 9/11 terrorism attacks. In its 69-page report, the civil liberties group blasted the bureau for “a record of extraordinary abuse – particularly targeting racial and religious minorities, immigrants and protest groups under the guise of counterterrorism.”

“It’s good to have that push from the outside,” Comey said. “. . . I’m going to read (the report) with an open mind.”

75 Law officers push for preschool as crime prevention tool By Carol Ferguson, Eyewitness News Published: Sep 26, 2013 at 10:07 PM PDT

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — Kern County's top law officers are joining a push for more early childhood programs as a tool to reduce crime.

"Fight Crime: Invest in Kids" is a nationwide effort, and backers say they have the studies to prove their proposals will pay off in safer communities and lower costs.

"We're here today to talk about some of the outcomes, some of the importance of fighting crime and investing in kids," Bakersfield Police Chief Greg Williamson said. Thursday he was among the group at a preschool on Ming Avenue.

The organization behind the effort says the local officers are among more than 1,000 nationwide who've signed a letter urging Congress to enact the proposal that would provide more pre-schools for low- and moderate-income families. They also want to see expanded early childhood development programs for kids from birth to age three, and voluntary home visiting programs.

The group's materials were handed out in a brochure titled "I'm the Guy You Pay Later," with Sheriff Donny Youngblood's picture on the front. The idea is, it costs more to pay for locking criminals up. The same money would be better spent steering kids away from crime at an early age.

Supporters of the plan say studies show kids in pre-school have a better chance of graduating from high school, and high school grads have a better chance of staying away from crime.

"Quality pre-schools and early childhood programs have been proven to be successful," Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green said. "And that levels the playing field for these kids, so they can have a successful start in school."

The group points to a study from Chicago's Child-Parent Centers. They say it found kids in that program were "20 percent less likely to be arrested for a felony or be incarcerated as young adults that those who did not attend."

They also argue kids are more likely to graduate from high school if they go to pre-school, and kids with a high school diploma less likely to end up committing crimes. Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood says local stats bear that out. "In Kern County alone, if you look at the inmate population, 61 percent of those inmates do not have a high school education," Youngblood said. "Their chances of being successful are really minimized."

Backers frame their argument as a "fork in the road." They say stats show the choices are 2 million people in prison at a cost of $75 billion each year. Or an additional 2 million high school graduates, at a cost of $75 billion over ten years for pre-school.

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Organization spokeswoman Meghan Moroney says the proposal is part of the Administration's spending plan, and it will take lawmaker approval. The group is trying to drum up support.

"No child is destined at birth to end up in jail," Chief Williamson said. "We'd much rather see kids in caps and gowns than handcuffs and jumpsuits."

And Youngblood echoed that. "It's our obligation to invest money and time into helping these children become good citizens, because they're our future," he said.

And, the group said their proposal will result in financial benefits, too. "An investment in early childhood education, that's one-tenth of what we spend on incarceration today," Williamson said. "Thirteen thousand fewer inmates, and $1.1 billion dollars in cost savings to our state every year."

Police pay may entangle candidates By Andrew Ryan and Maria Cramer | BOSTON GLOBE SEPTEMBER 27, 2013 Boston police patrolmen are expected to receive a major arbitration award in coming days that could thrust a high-profile labor dispute into a heated race for mayor.

Arriving just weeks before the Nov. 5 election, the award could plunge City Hall back into the kind of conflict it saw in 2010, when a fight over a Boston firefighters’ contract, with a 19.2 percent arbitration award, dominated for weeks.

Details of the patrolmen’s award remain confidential, because it has not been finalized, but two officials said they were told it is a six-year deal that would raise police pay by 23 percent or more.

The timing of the decision on the patrolmen’s contract will put a spotlight on Boston’s two finalists for mayor and how they might handle future contact negotiations with the city’s public safety unions.

“This will really have an impact in the campaign with respect to collective bargaining with public safety unions,” said Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research, a fiscal watchdog funded by businesses and nonprofits.

The Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, which has 1,460 members, has not endorsed a candidate for mayor.

“Is there any reason for the firefighters’ union and police unions not to go to arbitration? They get a better deal. How does the next mayor address that issue?”

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Thirty of Boston’s employee unions have agreed to six-year contracts with raises worth just over 12 percent. That includes the Boston Teachers Union, the city’s largest union with 7,700 members.

The patrolmen’s contract expired in 2010. After 24 negotiating sessions, the contract went to arbitration before a three-member panel. Once the arbitration award is official, the mayor’s office is required to endorse it and send it to the City Council, which must vote on whether to fund the contract.

The council vote could be a difficult decision for Councilor at Large John R. Connolly, one of two finalists for mayor. Voting in favor of a large award could upset taxpayers, while voting against it could anger police. His campaign has received $2,400 in donations from police, according to records with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Connolly’s campaign declined to comment Thursday.

A generous award for the union could also be problematic for the other finalist, state Representative Martin J. Walsh. Critics have questioned whether Walsh, a favorite of organized labor, will be able to fairly negotiate union contracts. He has been endorsed by the firefighters union and has received more than $16,000 in donations from people who identified themselves as police officers.

Walsh’s campaign said via e-mail that it could not comment because it did not know the details of the award.

The Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, which has more than 1,460 members, has not endorsed a candidate for mayor. Thomas J. Nee, the union’s president, did not return a phone message seeking comment. In August, the union informed its members that the negotiating panel was meeting almost weekly and that a decision was expected by the end of September.

“We are moving as quickly as possible, given all the complexities of the issues,” the union’s attorney, Susan Horwitz said, according to an update posted on the union website.

Other police unions have high interest in the outcome of the negotiations.

“Everyone has been waiting, anxiously waiting,” said an official from another union who asked for anonymity because the award is not yet public.

“They’re the biggest union in the city out of the four [police unions], and they carry the most weight,” the official said. “Historically, whatever the patrol officers get, we all get.”

The official said that the unions representing detectives, superior detectives, and superior officers still need to negotiate other issues in their contracts. But the largest point of contention, salary increases, typically reflects what patrol officers receive.

78 In 2010, Councilor Michael P. Ross was council president and threatened to reject the firefighters’ award, forcing the union to return to the bargaining table. Firefighters ultimately received a deal that included raises worth more than 17 percent over five years and a bump on the last day of the contract that amounted to raises worth 21.5 percent.

“I’m absolutely proud of how we handled ourselves in 2010,” Ross said Thursday. “I think we should be proud for negotiating a better deal for the taxpayers of this city.”

Councilor Stephen J. Murphy, the current president, called this week for a hearing to examine the council’s role when the union receives an arbitration award and determine why the patrolmen’s negotiations broke down.

Speaking in the council chamber Wednesday, Murphy told his colleagues that they overstepped their authority in dealing with the firefighters.

“In 2010, I saw our role perverted in a way,” Murphy said, warning that the city charter barred the council from negotiating contracts. “It was a bad precedent foisted upon us.”

The debate in the City Council over whether to fund the patrolmen’s award will probably spill into the mayor’s race, but former city councilor Michael J. McCormack said he was not sure how it might play out. Connolly could try to use to highlight Walsh’s ties to labor, but there is also a risk.

“He may try to exploit it, but John has to vote on it,” said McCormack. “Frankly, people like cops, and they like firemen. I don’t know if there is a whole lot of political capital to be gained.”

Detroit manager seeks to freeze pension plans September 26 BY COREY WILLIAMS Associated Press

DETROIT — Detroit's state-appointed emergency manager has told the city's two municipal retirement systems that it wants to freeze the city's pension plans.

Emergency manager Kevyn Orr wants to close the pension plans to new employees by the end of the year as the city moves to a 401(k)-style system. Orr also wants to put a freeze on all accrued future benefits for existing members of the systems. The city would contribute 10 percent of police and firefighter base pay and five percent of the base pay of non-uniformed workers to the pension plan.

Pension officials received the proposal last week. On Thursday, Orr released preliminary results from an audit of the General Retirement System and the

79 Police and Fire Retirement System that showed retirees received interest payments of more than 20 percent over a number of years as the pension systems were losing millions of dollars. He also has ordered 21 officials with both systems to provide retiree pension payment records.

No one from the General Retirement System had any input in the pension proposal, according to Tina Bassett, a spokeswoman for that system.

"We believe it is unseemly and disingenuous to present a proposal involving a new benefit structure that will affect the pensions of our members, beneficiaries and city employees not yet vested, without seeking our input, suggestions, knowledge and expertise," Bassett said.

The General Retirement System has about 20,500 members. The police and fire system has nearly 12,700 members, according to the audit ordered by Orr.

Orr has said the city has underfunded obligations of about $3.5 billion for pensions and $5.7 billion for retiree health coverage.

In July, he made Detroit the largest U.S. city to seek bankruptcy protection. He has said the city has $18 billion or more in debt. Creditors, including city retirees, are fighting the bankruptcy petition in federal court. They claim Orr has not negotiated in good faith on settling the city's debt and has not proved Detroit is insolvent.

Preliminary results of the audit by Detroit's auditor general and inspector general listed a 2010 General Retirement System report that reveals more than $73 million was lost in real estate investments. The Police and Fire Retirement System the same year reported a more than $52 million loss for similar investments.

Orr had asked for an independent review of citywide employee benefit programs. He questioned a past policy in which cash payments were made by the General Retirement System to the accounts of retirees and active city workers.

"This report helps shed light on certain practices undertaken by Detroit's two pension funds," Orr said in a news release. "The purpose of the audit is to help identify how the city can address its present financial crisis and going forward help determine the basis for and what, if any, actions that must be taken."

The sub-prime mortgage meltdown that sent real estate investment portfolios across the country into a nosedive also negatively impacted Detroit's retirement systems, both systems said Thursday in a joint statement.

But their boards "have been taking appropriate steps over the last several years to reduce the asset allocation to real estate holdings," the systems said. "The pension funds are currently operating well within industry standards."

The audit also looked at city administration and employee benefits between July 1, 2011 and March 31, 2013, and found that 13 percent of 1,484 unemployment

80 compensation claims investigated were "likely fraudulent," while another 36 percent were "highly questionable."

It also found that 58 people were getting benefits despite having no employment history with Detroit.

What Will a Police Officer Do in Weston High School? Posted by Bill Bittar (Editor) , September 27, 2013 at 01:16 AM Weston-CT.Patch.com Weston is closing in on having its first school resource officer. On Wednesday night, Police Commission Chairman Bill Brady told members of the boards of education, finance and selectmen that commissioners were ready to sign off on a memorandum of understanding on the responsibilities of the new position, but had decided to discuss it first at the tri-board meeting at Weston Middle School that night.

However, First Selectwoman Gayle Weinstein told Brady and Police Chief John Troxell she first wants to iron out some legal issues to protect the town from any potential litigation brought on by disagreements with the police union.

"I want to avoid any union grievance or violation of the union contract," she said.

Among her concerns, Weinstein said the memorandum of understanding says the SRO's evaluation will be done in accordance with written policies and procedures of the Weston Police Department, but there are no written policies and procedures.

Other potential issues are shifts, hours, days off and sending an officer not trained as an SRO to fill a shift. "We want to make sure it isn't something the union would see as against protocol," Weinstein said.

The first selectwoman also said she wants to ensure there is not training where the town would have to cover the costs.

"I have concerns," she said.

"I thought you were for an SRO," Brady said.

"I do support it," Weinstein replied. "I just want to be careful not to get sued — To protect the town."

If everything works out, an SRO will be hired for the 2014-15 school year.

Daily Responsibilities

Weston High School Principal Lisa Deorio said her staff envisions the SRO walking around the school and connecting with students and, because Weston's

81 schools are on one campus, being a resource for the other schools when permitted to.

Of hiring an SRO she said, "I'm excited about the possibility of having one here."

Board of Finance Chairman Jerry Sargent asked Deorio to describe what a day in the life of an SRO would be like.

Deorio said the officer would be visible in the morning, could assist with instruction and develop a rapport with students so they feel comfortable going to him or her with problems.

"We have many issues at the school," she said, mentioning drugs as one of them.

Board of Education member Dana Levin said an SRO can be tailored to your school's needs.

Selectman Dave Muller said, "This is a resource to identify where problems may exist. In my mind, that is a crucial aspect."

"Isn't that what a guidance counsellor and every educator at the school should be involved in?" asked Richard Bochinski, a Board of Finance member.

'Are We Safer?'

Some finance board members asked how the district would measure the success of an SRO program.

Supt. Colleen Palmer said the question, "Are we safer?" would be considered, adding soft and hard data would be tracked including the number interventions and connections an SRO makes. At the end of the academic year, the principal would be interviewed to assess if the SRO made a positive impact at the school, according to Palmer.

"If the SRO is funded by this community, we think we would owe you a report at the end of the year," she said.

In all of the discussion, Bochinski said he hadn't heard the word "security".

Palmer said, "Sometimes you don't state the obvious. This person is going to have a firearm. Having a police officer on campus is the greatest deterrent to anything happening."

Palmer also pointed out that the presence of a police officer leads to a reduction in drugs and contraband on campus.

Chief Troxell said, "The SRO is a conduit between the students and the community and has a sixth sense when something is wrong. Security is a smaller part of it. He's there to get in front of an issue before there's an incident at the school."

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A Full Time Position

Troxell said there is a "misconception" that an SRO is a part-time position because of the 180-day school year. He said there is a lot the officer could do in the summertime, including providing security at events to cut down on police overtime and being at the school for summer programs.

"It's not a part-time position," the chief said. "It's a full-time position. Teachers aren't seen as part-time and they work 180 days as well."

Among the issues to be hammered out is when an SRO will go on vacation.

No Junior Criminals Here

Troxell wanted to ease any concerns some parents may have that having a police officer in the high school would lead to a major spike in arrests of town teenagers.

With the exception of serious crimes, he said offenses would be dealt with through juvenile referrals, often to be settled in-house by the student's parents rather than going to juvenile court.

"Our department goes out of its way not to make children into junior criminals," Troxell said. "We're a small-town police department. In no way, shape or form do we see an SRO being here to make a ton of juvenile arrests leading to court and criminal records."

Palmer pointed out that state statutes limit a police officer's arrest powers inside a school anyway. For instance, a police officer needs a warrant to search a locker and a principal does not.

Deorio added that school staff has to follow district policy on when it can call police to the campus.

Troxell said, "The SRO program is not about an officer going through book bags. That's not what this is about."

Online policing: Service must address borderless threat

The UK is well-equipped to become a world leader in dealing with this emerging threat, says Peter Neyroud.

Date - 26th September 2013 By - Peter Neyroud Police Oracle

83 The pace of change in the way we use technology to carry out most of our day- to-day transactions is staggering. Shopping, banking, contacting the doctor, the Dentist or the Local authority or booking a cinema ticket are all things you would have done by telephone or in person just a decade ago. Now, you just log on and browse.

It is probably the most radical transformation of our daily lives since the telephone and radio. But like those two, it has enormous implications for policing. The emergency 999 system was first launched in June 1937 after an outcry resulting from a fatal fire and the inability to contact the fire brigade and police in order to respond. By the mid-1960’s the system was universal across Western democracies and the police were forced to create a capacity and discipline of response policing. By the mid-1960’s, with the near universal adoption of UHF and VHF radios, the Victorian model of beat policing had been swept away and replaced by Unit Beat Policing – a hybrid response and community policing model. There are still those like Peter Hitchens, who hark back to the “golden age” pre-Unit Beat Policing, but the reality is that the modern demands of the public require a modern policing.

Moreover, just as police were forced to change and adapt to meet the new demands set by the 999 system, the police of the 21st century need to adapt – but even more rapidly – to the internet and cybercrime age. Clearly, there are some significant developments – force websites, computer crime units and a national e-crime unit – but the Police Service’s approach and the citizen’s perception of police presence online has become a serious issue for the police.

Anyone who has tried reporting an online crime or reporting a crime online will find that, with a number of exceptions, the Police Service has a long way to travel. The issues are not confined to the UK. A good friend who remains one of the major figures in US policing recently tried reporting a mortgage fraud committed online, to find that no single police force would admit that it had a role. His local force stated that it was “online”. The force where the server was hosted suggested reporting it to his local force and the ‘crime’ fell below the FBI’s level of interest. The same experience is sadly too familiar to UK citizens as well, despite the best efforts of the City of London’s team.

Recently, an App – “Self Evident” – was launched on the iPhone and Android platforms. It has tried to fill the gap with an easy means of reporting crime online (as well as online crime). The App is, indeed, clever and easy to use. But when you press the icon to report a crime to the police, you discover that outside London, the App is going to direct your crime to your “local neighbourhood team”. I am sure that some neighbourhood teams are equipped to cope with such reports, but I am willing to bet that they are in the minority. In all likelihood, I fear that many of these reports will vanish into an electronic black hole.

Our policing system – 43 police forces with 43 different crime-reporting systems – only makes this worse. All over the world police are scratching their heads and trying to work out how a policing model that has been built and developed to police a physical geography with tangible boundaries can be transformed to cope

84 with a world without frontiers, in which crimes can be committed remotely but are likely to be reported locally.

Yet, the UK actually has a world lead in tackling one part of this challenge. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) are world class in their approach to tackling online child abuse images and online child abuse. There is unique combination of a third party – charitable – agency (IWF) – supported by subscriptions from the industry –providing the public reporting portal, analytical expertise and site blocking, with a law enforcement agency, CEOP, delivering the enforcement and covert capability and specialist law enforcmement. Both are also working to improve the capability of other countries to tackle their problems – it is no good with online crime thinking that a UK bounded solution will prevent or deter.

The lessons that we have learnt in tackling child abuse images need to be applied to the wider world of online crime. We need a similar combination of police and a third party agency as a portal for reporting, an analytic filterer of reports and a distributor to a reliable network of single points of contact in each force or the National Crime Agency. We all need to have a trusted source of advice and repository for our reports and we need to feel that when we are online, the police are there, just as they would be if we were walking in our local neighbourhood.

A former chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency, Peter Neyroud is currently a resident scholar at the Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology at Cambridge University.

U.S. Jails, Filled With Mentally Ill, Are the 'New Asylums' Wall Street Journal

America's lockups are its new asylums, says the Wall Street Journal. After scores of state mental institutions were closed beginning in the 1970s, few alternatives materialized. Many of the afflicted wound up on the streets, where, untreated, they became more vulnerable to joblessness, drug abuse and crime. The country's three biggest jail systems—in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York—have more than 11,000 prisoners under treatment on any given day. They represent by far the largest mental- health treatment facilities in the country.

By comparison, the three largest state-run mental hospitals have a combined 4,000 beds. Put another way, the number of mentally ill prisoners the three facilities handle daily is equal to 28 percent of all beds in the nation's 213 state psychiatric hospitals. In a survey of how states deal with this "explosive societal issue," the Journal found mental-health

85 patient ratios ranged from one in 10 inmates to one in two. Inmates in all 23 responding states account for 55% of the prisoners in the U.S. under state jurisdiction. The Wall Street Journal

New Baton Rouge Chief Wants His Cops to Talk Nice Communication a priority, Dabadie tells Rotary Club

BY JIM MUSTIAN [email protected] September 26, 2013 Police Chief Carl Dabadie said Wednesday that he has made it a priority in his young administration to improve the way officers are communicating with the people they serve.

The “biggest complaint” the department receives “is not what we do, it’s how we talk to people,” Dabadie said at a meeting of the Baton Rouge Rotary Club. There are times, he said, “when you get used to dealing with the bad guys all the time and that flows over to the victim.”

“Sometimes they’re in bad moods and sometimes they’re not as friendly as they need to be, but I am working on that,” Dabadie said. “I have gotten with some people to try to help us with that and get us to educate our officers on how to better talk to people who have been through crisis.”

Cpl. L’Jean McKneely, a police spokesman, said the department is looking into hiring a private company to teach officers better communication skills. “They’re still in negotiations, so nothing is concrete,” McKneely said.

Dabadie, who was sworn in about two months ago, is known among his peers as a disciplinarian who has not hesitated to suspend wayward officers.

Beyond fulfilling their normal duties, Dabadie said, officers should be willing to change tires for stranded motorists and rescue cats from trees.

“We are so much more than just strictly law enforcement,” he said. “What I want to bring is higher levels of accountability on supervision and disciplinary actions taken when needed to ensure that we are producing the best possible service for this community.”

Describing the department he inherited as “a mess,” Dabadie said he has made several changes in his command staff to revitalize the force.

He has appointed new uniform patrol and detective commanders, as well as a new chief of staff and assistant, and said more changes are on the way.

86 “From time to time your house gets stuffy, and from time to time you have to open some windows and let some fresh air in,” Dabadie said. “I felt we needed to open the windows and let some fresh air in with some new faces and some new thoughts and new processes.”

The chief touted what he described as “a new way of policing in the parish,” saying local agencies have been working together on a regular basis.

“We are not separate any more. We are one unit,” Dabadie said, referring to weekly intelligence meetings attended by representatives of several agencies at the East Baton Rouge Parish Violent Crimes Unit.

That cooperation has only been strengthened, he said, by the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination project, a federally funded crime-fighting initiative that received another boost Wednesday in the form of an additional $1.4 million grant.

The funding, an extension of the BRAVE grant awarded last year, came days after city leaders announced the receipt of a $1 million grant that will be used to expand the program into the high-crime communities of Istrouma, Eden Park, Midtown and Greenville Extension.

Law enforcement officials have credited BRAVE with reducing crime rates in the parish.

How Street Stops Influence Police Legitimacy September 27, 2013 08:54:26 am The Crime Report

Perceptions of police legitimacy are shaped by whether police are seen as exercising their authority fairly and lawfully, according to a new Columbia Law School study.

Researchers conducted phone interviews with 1,261 male New York City residents between the ages of 18 and 26 the influence; the interviews “showed an association between the number of police stops and a diminished sense of police legitimacy.”

But the study notes that the total number of stops was less influential on police legitimacy than perceptions of injustice or illegality during those stops.

In order to improve perceptions of police legitimacy, the study’s authors suggest that police should treat each encounter with citizens as a ‘teachable moment’ that can build legitimacy.

“Lowered legitimacy has an influence on both law abidingness and the willingness to cooperate with legal authorities,” researchers wrote.

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