Saskatoon police to report to Board of Police Commissioners on how they are left to intervene in non-criminal crisis situations

The Saskatoon Board of Police Commissioners received two motions from commission member and Mayor Charlie Clark at its Thursday meeting.

One motion was introduced as a result of the dozens of letters sent by residents recently, demanding the police service be defunded, and as a way of understanding what role the Saskatoon Police Service plays in responding to, and mitigating crises that are not necessarily related to crimes; but rather are addictions, housing, social services, health and mental health related.

“For many years there’s been an active conversation in Saskatoon about how we cannot arrest our way out of crime, and that we need a better system of integration between police response and crisis health, mental health and community support services,” said Clark during the introduction of the motion.

It called on Police Chief Troy Cooper to compile a report, including the partnerships and programs that have been developed over the last decade, that contributed to a more integrated response between police and community partners, as well as an overview of where police are finding their greatest challenges.

The Board unanimously agreed to have Cooper report back in August.

“If we were to report in August, that would certainly give us enough time to put some thought to what programs we already have, how we arrived at those programs, the impact of them, and some context to what’s happening elsewhere,” said Cooper.

The second motion called for more than simply the appointment of one independent observer to investigate serious police-related incidents, the introduction of the Police Amendment Act 2020 and $350,000 in funding as recently announced by the province.

“The currently proposed changes…do not address the fact that police services are still investigating police services in the matters of serious injury or death,” said Clark.

He cited at least seven other provinces that already have independent serious incident response teams, and that members of the Indigenous, Black and other communities have expressed a lack of confidence in the way serious police-involved incidents are investigated in Saskatchewan.

The motion called for the province to, therefore, consider creating an independent ‘serious incident response team model’ to eliminate the possibility of a police service investigating another police service or police officer.

The second motion was also moved, and unanimously accepted. The next Board of Police Commissioners Meeting takes place August 27.