MEETING PREVIEW: Guelph Police Services Board for June 15, 2023

This month’s Guelph Police Services Board meeting promises to be a busy one, and police have a lot of different information to report, including the biggest report of all, the Annual Report. The board will also look at the annual Use of Force report, the hiring of some additional officers, and they will hear from several delegates about noisy cars and another annual report, the one from Crime Stopppers.

NOTE: This meeting takes place virtually at 2:30 pm but it will be broadcast on Guelph Police’s YouTube page.

PRESENTATIONS/DELEGATIONS:

1) Sarah Bowers-Peter, Program Co-ordinator of Crime Stoppers Guelph Wellington, will present the organization’s annual report to the board.

2) Duncan MacKenzie and Mike Darmon along with Donna Jennison, Luke Weiler will offer what seems like three co-ordinated delegations about loud vehicle bylaw enforcement.

Human Resources Report: Member Appointments Decision – There’s one new appointment to approve this month, and it’s Drew Neil who has been named as a Temporary Special Constable in the Neighbourhood Services Unit. Constable Neil’s service took effect on May 23.

Board Correspondence Report Information – Incoming mail is the request from the Canadian Association of Police Governance, which is dealt with below. In outgoing mail is a congratulatory letter to a new hire.

Sponsorship Request: Canadian Association of Police Governance – The Canadian Association of Police Governance, which is a national organization dedicated to excellence in police governance in Canada, is asking the Guelph Police to help sponsor their annual conference. The board is recommended to approve the allocation of $500 as donation to the cause, which is the same amount they put up in 2021 and 2022. The funds were set aside in the 2023 Guelph Police Budget for this purpose.

Guelph Police Service Promotions Information – For your (and for the board’s) information, these are the recent promotions that came into effect: Inspector Jeimy Karavelus, Staff Sargeant Brad Saint, Sergeant Dan Connelly, and, most famously, Deputy Chief Steve Gill.

Supportive Staffing Decision – Following up on the KPMG Staffing Service Delivery Review presented to the board in April, police staff are presenting a plan to fire four new Constable Full-Time Equivalents in the 2024-2027 multi-year budget. To demonstrate the need, police note that in the first four months of 2023 there were 240 shifts, and only 53 per cent were staffed by the minimum 11 officers while 31 per cent of shifts required one officer or more doing overtime to get to the 11 officer minimum. The recommendation will be referred to the board’s budget deliberations this fall.

2022 Annual Report Information – The annual report from the Guelph Police Service provides information about the organization, results of crime prevention activities and investigations, reports about emergency calls, violent and property crimes, information about road safety and budgeting. The format for this report follows a framework laid out in the Policing Standards Guideline that’s followed by other police services.

Some highlights? October was the busiest month and Friday was the busiest day. The most common type of call for service was Compassionate to Locate with nearly 4,000 calls, followed by suspicious person (2,562), and bylaw complaint (2,302). The number of Criminal Code offences was up by nearly 700 from 2021, and there were mixed results on property crime because while the number of break and enters and frauds were down slightly, the number of thefts from cars and theft under $5,000 was up. The number of weapons possession charges was about the same year-over-year, but the number of indecent acts jump from 17 in 2021 to 49.

You can check out all the stats in the full report, which starts on page 107 in the agenda package.

Annual Use of Force Report – Guelph Police officers answered nearly 78,000 calls for service in 2022, and a little under 100 of them saw one of more levels of force used. Officers have to submit a Use of Force Report whenever their side arm is drawn in the presence of a member of the public, points a firearm or discharges it; whenever a non-firearm weapon is used on another person; when an officer uses physical force that results in injury requiring medical attention; and when a conducted energy weapon, or taser, is used on a person or animal.

So last year, police used 223 varying Use of Force tactics in the 99 reported incidents, that’s an increase from 145 tactics in 80 reports in 2021. The most often used tactic in 2022 was the drawing of one’s firearm. There were 71 instances of that followed by 62 instances where the firearm was pointed and 53 times when the taser was used in the demonstrated force presence. Nearly four out of five times, use of force was used responding to a citizen complaint versus an officer initiated encounter. Use of Force was most often used while serving a search warrant, and that applied for 13 calls, and two other types of calls were tied for second with 12 each: domestic dispute and mental health call.

By the demographics, out of the 121 people involved in the incidents where use of force was used 103 were White, 10 were Black, three were East/Southeast Asian, two were Indigenous, two were Latino, and one was Middle Eastern.

Chief’s Monthly Report – As usual, Guelph Police Services Chief Gord Cobey will deliver a verbal report about the latest goings on at 15 Wyndham Street South.

SEE THE COMPLETE AGENDA ON THE GUELPH POLICE WEBSITE HERE.