Training and use of force were front and centre for the Delta Police Department last week.
DPD hosted a session with local media, including the Delta Optimist, to discuss these topics as well as go through a number of virtual training scenarios at its Regional Municipal Training Centre, which opened in early March.
Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, an incident that sparked worldwide protests, police agencies have been put under the microscope for their use of force, particularly against visible minorities.
“What happened to George Floyd is indeed tragic and needless,” said DPD deputy Chief Norm Lipinski. “Police officers, when they see use of force anywhere around the world, you instinctively take yourself to your own department and ask yourself how would we handle that?
“It was discouraging to see that kind of use of force. We don’t train that kind of use of force. It was discouraging to see that nobody intervened, it was discouraging to see him [Floyd] just look up, really quite calmly, to the people taking the video of him. It was disappointing for the police profession.”
Lipinski said here in Canada policing is, quite frankly, different than in the U.S. for a number of reasons, one of which is training.
“Here in B.C., we have provincial standards for training, but what we are going to show you today is what Delta Police Department does above and beyond that, so we have some very forward leaning, progressive thinkers here and we take the extra step in many different areas in de-escalation, and training on the simulator is one of those areas.”
Lipinski said it all starts with recruiting.
“When you are talking about people who do inappropriate actions on the street, in whatever type of scenario it may be, it starts with the character of that individual. What we do here is we do very intensive training, including polygraph,” he said. “I can’t speak for the ones in the U.S. but those large agencies, like New York with 35,000 members, it just doesn’t happen, so screening is that much more important.”
Secondly, he said training through the JIBC on such issues as implicit bias, Indigenous people and various cultures is robust.
“It’s fair to say the training is extensive at JIBC. We also have very extensive in-service training in the department,” he said. “We might not be the best, but we are certainly in the top tier. Then we have way more comprehensive oversight here in Canada than in the U.S. We have the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner as well as the Independent Investigations Office and the Police Act. These all help police to maintain the trust of the community.”
Lipinski said officers in Delta have contact with the community about 40,000 times a year.
“Most times when we are called, people are not that happy,” he said. “When you are talking about complaints, we have very few. In 2019, we had two complaints of excessive force, one of which was withdrawn. Do the math on that and that’s .005 per cent given the amount of contacts you have. I think that’s pretty good. I think it speaks to our people, it speaks to the training we have, it speaks to the oversight we have.”
But, as Lipinski points out, you can’t start the conversation without looking at the underpinnings of what goes on in society, including issues such as addiction, poverty and unemployment.
“We, as a society, have to work on fixing that. This is sometimes very difficult and very costly, but we together have to do,” he added. “It is not, of course, left up to the police, but mental health, addiction, poverty and unemployment is something that is with us and will always be with us.
“When it comes to inappropriate behaviour, we have no tolerance for it at the Delta Police Department and not only do we not tolerate it, it is illegal. It’s contrary to the charter, criminal code, it’s contrary to the Police Act and you can be charged in all those various areas. Our standards are high and our expectations on behaviour are high.”
Last Thursday, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart called on the province for a full review of all policing in the province.
In response, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said when the legislature resumes later this month, he would table a motion to strike an all-party committee to engage with communities and experts on modernizing the 45-year-old Police Act.
“If the province wants to do a review of policing, we are going to cooperate and we will show them what we do. We are pretty comfortable and confident in what we do and the kind of people we hire and the training we have,” said Lipinski.
On the issue of body cameras, Lipinski said he supports them.
“I’m a fan of them because of the evidence. It’s a silent witness if you will,” he said. “It protects the member a lot. The research is controversial depending on where you go on whether it changes the behaviour of the person you stopped or changes the behaviour of the officer. Some argue that with what happened in Minnesota, having a body cam wouldn’t have made a difference because he didn’t care and was being recorded already. With body cams in Canada, you have to go to the community to see if they want it. It’s sweeping through south of the border right now because I believe it does build public trust for them, so the question for us is are we there or do we need it for some other reason.”
Later in the session, S/Sgt. Mo Parry, A/Sgt. Aaron Hill, Const. Erin Gray, Supt. Craig New and Lipinski put media through various scenarios in the simulator.
The simulator consists of five large screens surrounding the officer, and real-time audio, linked to a computer operated by other officers, which offers hundreds of fully-interactive scenarios to allow officers to practice their skills in an immersive environment.
“The training simulator is really about critical decision-making,” said Parry. “We are looking at a broad spectrum of situations that officers might face or encounter through the course of their duties and teaching them how to maximize their response to subject behaviour.”
Delta is the first department to have this specific 300-degree simulator.
Parry said DPD’s training philosophy has a number of guiding principles regarding the use of force, including the sanctity of human life.
“All life is important, whether it is the victim, a witness or the subject that is at the receiving end of force by the police,” said Parry. “We have a duty of care, so we actually train our officers on life saving skills to be able to help people, and that includes people we use force on.”
He said de-escalation is a crucial skill set that every police officer must have in their tool box.
“There are a lot of questions out there coming from the community,” said Parry. “We can always do better and we are always willing to listen.”
