Winnipeg police chief says service is struggling to handle the number of homicide investigations so far this year due to pressure from the first three months of 2022, including 500 people forced to leave work in cause of COVID-19.
The police force has also been strained by 53 special events, such as protests and rallies, so far this year, according to the latest update of the service’s business plan, which covers the first quarter of 2022 and was presented Friday at a Winnipeg Police Council meeting. .
Over the past year, there have been 72 such events in the city center.
And with 23 homicides so far this year, Police Chief Danny Smyth said officers are burned.
“It’s a drip,” he told reporters after Friday’s police board meeting.
“It’s not just the homicide unit. It’s the forensic unit. It’s our front-line units that are often the first to be there … It has an impact on the queue and it’s starting to make a backup.”
Smyth said overtime rose 29 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to last year. The latest public crime data from February show that violent crime increased by 21% compared to that month last year.
Smyth said he is not happy with this trend.
“All it takes is a couple of important events, which are very intense at the forefront when it comes to fundraising,” Smyth said.
“This past month, we’ve seen our queues go up again to 300 calls waiting to be sent. That’s too high for my comfort zone.”
The city is experiencing an increase in violent crime right now, but Winnipeg is still a safe city, the police chief said.
“I live in the city and I have children in the city; it’s still a relatively safe city,” Smyth said.
“But people have to be aware and they have to be aware of the situation when they are out.”
‘There is no proactive police’: union
The president of the police union has a different view.
Winnipeg Police Association President Moe Sabourin said police officers are so exhausted that they refuse overtime.
The service said it called officers during its days off 433 times during the first three months of 2022. The average five years before COVID-19 was 222 calls, he said.
“They go from call to call,” Sabourin told reporters Friday.
“There is no proactive police. It is a strict response … I would like the service to report accurately on all the incidents that are taking place out there because it is scary. I would not let my children come to the center of the city ”.
Winnipeg Police Association President Moe Sabourin says Smyth is getting a “negative rating” as a leader right now. (Warren Kay / CBC)
Sabourin said Smyth is “getting a negative rating” right now as a leader.
“If I were the general manager of a successful sports team, and the team wasn’t doing well, you would probably change coach,” he said.
The increase in overtime also affects the city budget. The police service budget accounts for almost a third of the city’s total costs. Salaries and benefits make up the bulk of the police budget.
The chairman of the police board said that this organization cannot have a value for overtime right now.
“We can’t turn off the lights and close the door at the end of the budget,” Coun said. Markus Chambers (St. Norbert-Riu Sena).
“We need to work with this budget and make sure we provide adequate and effective service 365 days a year.”
Chambers said the perception of being an insecure city is affecting Winnipeg’s ability to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We need to work together and collaboratively as a community to make sure we can start reducing those numbers and these trends, and not have an impact on the overtime we’re seeing now,” he said.
Friday’s police board meeting was the first for new member Colleen Mayer, a former Conservative progressive MP. He was also the first for Coun. Ross Eadie since he was reinstated as a member in May.
Winnipeg police are struggling to cope with the rise in homicides
We’re not even in the middle of 2022, and Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth says his service is struggling to deal with the number of homicides we’ve seen this year.