For most Calgarians, their occasional ‘brush with the law’ is receiving that nasty letter in the mail telling them when and where police radar caught them speeding. For others, as was very much on display this week with the early arrival of winter, it’s the sight of the police on the scene of a road accident, directing traffic through the collision area, keeping everyone safe. What most Calgarians don’t see in person is the police on the scene of a shooting, supporting people who have been shot, or dealing with the dead. Few see someone who has overdosed on illegal drugs on the C-train who is being attended to by the police while they await the arrival of paramedics. They don’t see the police having to remove homeless people from makeshift camps in the woods just off Deerfoot Trail, knowing another homeless camp will pop up that they will have to evacuate and destroy. They don’t see a gun pointed at them, having to make a split-second decision about a proper response. What Calgarians also don’t see is the stress these situations create with officers, who go through strenuous training to learn how to deal with the stress. Calgary’s rapid growth, the size of two Kelownas in the last two years has exacerbated incidents as listed above, with little relief in sight. The city’s population is forecast to grow by up to 40,000 in the next two years. Police resources need to be strengthened, which why Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld and Calgary Police Commission member Shawn Corbett appeared before city council on Tuesday, asking for funds for a new ‘firearms range.’ They weren’t asking for a boost in funding for this year, but money for the range for the coming years. The new facility is calculated to cost $23 million, $13 million than what was originally budgeted. Neufeld and Corbett suggested to council there are a number of potential funding sources, including unallocated money from the community safety investment framework (CSIF,) city capital funding, Calgary Police Service (CPS) red light cameras capital reserve and CPS 2024 residual contributed surplus. The current facility is creating health concerns for CPS members because of high levels of lead and a bottle neck in training, because a new facility is about more than firearms, said Neufeld. “At the end of the day, this isn’t about training versus the community,” he said. “It’s not an option about not to train our officers to be able to deliver the services that Calgarians require.” Corbett outlined to council where the police budget is spent, saying 90% of the budget goes into staffing. “The other 10% goes into things such as employee psychological, equipment, phones, radios and all those other things,” she said. “Of that 10% left over, $13 million of it already this year has been decreased due to lower fine revenue so that was one other element, so it wasn’t just about perceptions of safety, it’s about how do we keep sufficient people on the street this year and next year to ensure that we have met our obligations to both the city and the service, so we were faced essentially with a choice between slowing the work of CSIF, not ensuring CPS is adequately staffed at the front line or reducing service levels.” “With those three choices in front of us, slowing the spend on CSIF was the one that appeared to be the best to meet the accountabilities that we have.” CSIF is funding for mental health and addiction crisis response. alleviating demand on police.“The current range used by CPS was built in the early 2000s and if you think back to what the population of the city was, it was around 875,000 and our sworn commitment of officers is about 40 to 45% higher now,” said Neufeld. “It sounds like this is where members are going for target practice but in fact this is a needed facility to meet standards to bring on new officers.” As well as returning officers, added Corbett. “Those who have been on leave either for health, maternal leave, paternal leave, any of those people who come back need to be retrained to make sure that they are up to speed,” she said. The current facility uses older technology, said Neufeld. “It’s not consistent with current standards around occupation and health and safety for lead exposure or noise abatement. We have four hours a day that officers can train . We have officers who are testing lead poisoning levels in their blood and monitoring that as well,” he said. “So you can imagine with the number of new officers that we’re bringing in we probably are at capacity right now.” Neufeld says abut 135 new officers are being brought in each year. “So in addition to the new officers we still have to train officers to the provincial standard, which is officers qualify every year, so we have to make sure that we’re training officers that are actually in service now.” “When it comes to the range this is not target practice. More and more, there is less lethal forces coming out. There is a heavy emphasis on descalation so this is about the whole of the force continuum, this is not about officers going in and learning to shoot. Yes, they need to be competent and capable and confident in that art but this is about the whole use force continuum.” “I suggest that officers that are competent and confident actually use less force than officers who are not.” Safety and security are ‘must haves’ for Calgarians. Council must approve this budget item.
For most Calgarians, their occasional ‘brush with the law’ is receiving that nasty letter in the mail telling them when and where police radar caught them speeding. For others, as was very much on display this week with the early arrival of winter, it’s the sight of the police on the scene of a road accident, directing traffic through the collision area, keeping everyone safe. What most Calgarians don’t see in person is the police on the scene of a shooting, supporting people who have been shot, or dealing with the dead. Few see someone who has overdosed on illegal drugs on the C-train who is being attended to by the police while they await the arrival of paramedics. They don’t see the police having to remove homeless people from makeshift camps in the woods just off Deerfoot Trail, knowing another homeless camp will pop up that they will have to evacuate and destroy. They don’t see a gun pointed at them, having to make a split-second decision about a proper response. What Calgarians also don’t see is the stress these situations create with officers, who go through strenuous training to learn how to deal with the stress. Calgary’s rapid growth, the size of two Kelownas in the last two years has exacerbated incidents as listed above, with little relief in sight. The city’s population is forecast to grow by up to 40,000 in the next two years. Police resources need to be strengthened, which why Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld and Calgary Police Commission member Shawn Corbett appeared before city council on Tuesday, asking for funds for a new ‘firearms range.’ They weren’t asking for a boost in funding for this year, but money for the range for the coming years. The new facility is calculated to cost $23 million, $13 million than what was originally budgeted. Neufeld and Corbett suggested to council there are a number of potential funding sources, including unallocated money from the community safety investment framework (CSIF,) city capital funding, Calgary Police Service (CPS) red light cameras capital reserve and CPS 2024 residual contributed surplus. The current facility is creating health concerns for CPS members because of high levels of lead and a bottle neck in training, because a new facility is about more than firearms, said Neufeld. “At the end of the day, this isn’t about training versus the community,” he said. “It’s not an option about not to train our officers to be able to deliver the services that Calgarians require.” Corbett outlined to council where the police budget is spent, saying 90% of the budget goes into staffing. “The other 10% goes into things such as employee psychological, equipment, phones, radios and all those other things,” she said. “Of that 10% left over, $13 million of it already this year has been decreased due to lower fine revenue so that was one other element, so it wasn’t just about perceptions of safety, it’s about how do we keep sufficient people on the street this year and next year to ensure that we have met our obligations to both the city and the service, so we were faced essentially with a choice between slowing the work of CSIF, not ensuring CPS is adequately staffed at the front line or reducing service levels.” “With those three choices in front of us, slowing the spend on CSIF was the one that appeared to be the best to meet the accountabilities that we have.” CSIF is funding for mental health and addiction crisis response. alleviating demand on police.“The current range used by CPS was built in the early 2000s and if you think back to what the population of the city was, it was around 875,000 and our sworn commitment of officers is about 40 to 45% higher now,” said Neufeld. “It sounds like this is where members are going for target practice but in fact this is a needed facility to meet standards to bring on new officers.” As well as returning officers, added Corbett. “Those who have been on leave either for health, maternal leave, paternal leave, any of those people who come back need to be retrained to make sure that they are up to speed,” she said. The current facility uses older technology, said Neufeld. “It’s not consistent with current standards around occupation and health and safety for lead exposure or noise abatement. We have four hours a day that officers can train . We have officers who are testing lead poisoning levels in their blood and monitoring that as well,” he said. “So you can imagine with the number of new officers that we’re bringing in we probably are at capacity right now.” Neufeld says abut 135 new officers are being brought in each year. “So in addition to the new officers we still have to train officers to the provincial standard, which is officers qualify every year, so we have to make sure that we’re training officers that are actually in service now.” “When it comes to the range this is not target practice. More and more, there is less lethal forces coming out. There is a heavy emphasis on descalation so this is about the whole of the force continuum, this is not about officers going in and learning to shoot. Yes, they need to be competent and capable and confident in that art but this is about the whole use force continuum.” “I suggest that officers that are competent and confident actually use less force than officers who are not.” Safety and security are ‘must haves’ for Calgarians. Council must approve this budget item.
