BTPS ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – 2016 1 Blood Tribe Police Service Annual Report 2015 - 2016 BTPS ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – 2016 2 Vision Statement To be the best mid-sized police service in Alberta Mission Statement To be culturally responsive to the needs of the Blood Tribe community as its police service and challenge all staff to provide effective and accountable policing that meets the mandates of legislation and our policing agreement. Responsibilities of the Blood Tribe Police Service1 Maintain an adequate number of police officers trained consistent with the level of training of other police officers in Alberta Police throughout the Blood Tribe Territory Preserve the peace, protect life and property, prevent crime and enforce the laws of the Blood Tribe, Canada and Alberta and apprehend those who may be lawfully taken into custody Provide the residents with a sense of security and safety from crime; Provide assistance to victims. The Values of the Blood Tribe Police Service Accountability Ethical Behavior Performance Excellence Integrity Community Commitment Respect 1 Blood Tribe Police Service Agreement - paraphrased from Section 7 BTPS ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – 2016 3 Message from the Chief of Police Thank you for taking the time to examine our annual report. We are very pleased to be able to present our accomplishments over the past year. The report is full of interesting information regarding the activities of the police service. Our calls for service have gone up consistently over the last year from 7092 in 2014 to 7422 in 2015. These numbers are still below our 2012 numbers when our officers attended 8178 calls for service. The number of people we house for all reasons in our cells has increased as well from 2605 in 2014 to 3439 in 2015. Complaints about the police service and police officers were down to a total of eleven in 2015. We continue to see fewer complaints as the public becomes more aware of the mandate of the police service and the accountability structure in place. Our officers must follow the same accountability structures as all other First Nations, Municipal and Regional police services in Alberta. We continue to provide public information on the rules governing police behavior and accountability and how to complain about or praise the police when appropriate. We have finally resolved our issues surrounding computer data bases and have permanently contracted the services of the RCMP PROS system. In conjunction with this upgrade we have also been able to obtain our own Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system that allows our dispatchers to more effectively deploy our officers to the calls for service. The dispatchers have all undergone extensive training for this new system as well as the new ProQA dispatch guidelines that insures the right information is being collected from callers. We ask the public to be patient over the next year as this system is fully implemented. It involves asking many more questions of callers to better service the public’s needs. The police service has undertaken to do a complete review of our policies to make sure that they are correct and follow the guidelines set by the Alberta Policing Standards. This will involve a review of every policy and procedure by an independent reviewer with recommendations made to implement any required changes. Part of the mandate of the police service is to provide opportunity for its staff to improve their levels of training and education. Many staff members have been given diverse training opportunities and have been successful in achieving the goals of the courses. With emphasis on developing future leaders and managers we have been fortunate that three officers were able to increase their level of competency to be promoted to Inspectors and take on increased BTPS ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – 2016 4 leadership rolls within the police service. Within the same year, one of the Inspectors was promoted to Deputy Chief. BTPS has been without a Deputy Chief for over 8 years. The community was shocked this past year with the onset of the Oxy80 or Fentanyl epidemic that resulted in many residents becoming addicted and too many losing their lives to overdose. This challenge was met head on by the community with groups and individuals banding together to form a united response to the problem. Your police service also responded to help deal with the situation. The Crime Reduction Unit (CRU) was formed which places three dedicated officers to deal with the ongoing drug enforcement issues and assist with intervention strategies. An experienced drug and major crime investigator was hired to assist all of our officers in honing their investigative skills in these matters. They have had several major successes in relation to drug trafficking and related offences. Three individuals were charged with Criminal Negligence Causing Death in relation to two drug overdose deaths in the community. Those matters are still before the courts. The police service continues to evolve new techniques. As an example we regularly bring drug sniffing dogs to the community to assist in detecting vehicles bringing drugs into the community. The [email protected] email tip line was set up and has become a very effective tool for collecting criminal intelligence. Despite the rapid growth of the community the crime problems remain fairly consistent even with a slight dip in numbers. The Blood Tribe Police Service (BTPS) still has one of the highest criminal case loads of any police service in Canada. In 2004 the BTPS received an increase in establishment up to 31 officers. At that time the Blood Tribe reported having a band membership of approximately 7400 persons. Today we still have 31 officers, but the population has increased up to 13,000. We need a further ten officers to be able to continue to effectively police the community. A request was made for the Chief and Council to fund four additional officers as a result of the added pressures of the Oxy80 crisis. We have not yet heard if they are able to provide that funding. Our police station continues to be a source of ongoing expense and is not spacious enough to provide the services we are required to provide. We have had to bring in two mobile offices which will be set up to augment our offices and make more room for the operational officers to perform their activities. The BTPS has enjoyed strong public support over the past year for which we are very grateful. We plan on continuing our increased public engagement and look forward to a continued supportive relationship with the citizens and other groups and businesses of the Blood Reserve. We continue to exceed our requirement to provide adequate policing to the public and are making many proactive steps to reduce crime and victimization. Kyle Melting Tallow BTPS ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – 2016 5 Acting Chief of Police BTPS diversity Blood Tribe members - Police FNMI - Police Other - Police Blood Tribe members - Civilain FMNI - Civilain Other - Civilian Years of Service - Police officers 20 + years 10 - 19 years 5 - 9 years 2 - 4 years less than 2 years BTPS ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – 2016 6 BTPS statistics 8000 7000 6000 5000 2013 4000 2014 3000 2015 2000 1000 0 Calls for Service Prisoners Held Clearance rate officer caseload 2013 – calls for service: 7014 2014 – calls for service: 7092 2015 – Calls for service: 7422 2014 – Prisoners held: 2605 2015 – Prisoners held: 3439 2014 – Clearance Rate: 59.6 2015 – Clearance Rate: 67.2 2013 – Officer case load: 269 2014 – Officer case load: 272 2015 – Officer case load: 285 BTPS ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – 2016 7 900 800 700 600 500 2013 400 2014 300 2015 200 100 0 Crimes against Property Crime Drug activity Impaired driving persons - Crimes against persons include, Assault, Sexual Assault, harassment - Property Crime include, Break and Enters, thefts, fraud, mischief - Drug Activity include, drug trafficking and possession - Impaired Driving, includes operation and care and control BTPS Recruiting With a shortage in its establishment, the BTPS was busy with the set up of recruiting booths in a number of communities and local events. Recruiting booths have been set up locally at the career fair in an attempt to attract local candidates. To better reflect the community, the BTPS is always on the look-out for local candidates who wish to join the service. The BTPS also set up a recruitment booth in Siksika Nation at their career day, Lethbridge College FNMI Days as well as Networking Days, Pride Parade, Street-wheelers, Kainai Indian Days. This cultivated one local candidate, unfortunately this candidate was unable to pass initial testing to continue in the hiring process. The recruiting officer maintains constant contact with this candidate to assist in maintaining their drive to become a member of the BTPS in the future. The BTPS took part in a work placement program of 4 cadets from Holland College in PEI. These 4 cadets worked for the BTPS for 10 weeks and were evaluated at the end of the program to determine if they were suitable to be a member of the BTPS. Of the 4 cadets that worked the BTPS ANNUAL REPORT 2015 – 2016 8 summer, 1 was hired. Meanwhile, 2 BTPS recruits that were sent to basic training at the RCMP Training Academy in Regina, SK, graduated in November 2015, one of which is a member of the Blood Tribe. As evidence of the BTPS’ stringent hiring process, 12 applicants were not accepted, none of which were members of the Blood Tribe. Recruitment plan was updated as per the Strategic Plan School Resource Officer 2015 saw the introduction of a dedicated School Resource Officer (SRO). This position was one of two positions financed by the Province of Alberta, the other being the Crime Prevention Coordinator position.