Complaints to police, use of force, strip searches, and the City’s armoured rescue vehicle (ARV) were the main talking points during reports at the Police Services Board meeting held on February 7th. 

Trent University made a very quick cameo late in the meeting by way of mentioning a recent meeting between VP Julie Davis and Chief Betts, during which it was decided Trent did not have the capacity to undertake meaningful involvement with the force’s 2024-2027 Strategic Planning Process. 

This was somewhat at odds with President Groarke’s suggestion at a recent Board of Governors meeting that the meeting had resulted in promising partnerships between the force and Trent following from the noted debauch of last year’s Head of the Trent.

The topic of drugs and their relation to violent crime made up most of Chief Stuart Betts’ opening remarks. He alerted the Board to two recent instances wherein citizens had called police to investigate suspicious packages which ended up containing drugs. 

One event saw a dog consume a package of PCP in a schoolyard over a preceding weekend while another involved a call about a suspicious package on a public path which, upon investigation, was revealed to contain cocaine. 

Betts also reported the recent arrest of an individual following an overdose death last year. He did not elaborate on the nature of the charges or how the person who was arrested was responsible for the overdose, but did mention that an illicit firearm was found on scene noting “drugs and guns go hand in hand.” 

A January 25th drug bust which saw two people charged with numerous drug-related offences as well as the seizure of $1M worth of drugs including meth, cocaine, Xanax, and fentanyl was publically announced by police on January 30th - the same day as Peterborough City Council was set to vote on and approve the 2023 budget.

“This is not a small-time drug dealer in our community. This is somebody preying on vulnerable people,” Betts stated at the time of the announcement. 

A subsequent editorial in the Examiner noted that the dent in the illicit drug trade created by this drug bust itself will quickly be filled. More recently, Will Pearson of Peterborough Currents wrote about the potential harms of large drug busts on the local populations through interviews with local harm reduction experts. 

When a supply is disrupted, there is an increased likelihood that existing substances will need to be cut with other substances, leading to situations where users are unfamiliar with the combinations of the substances they are taking which can lead to overdose. 

According to Peterborough Public Health, there has been an increase in drug poisonings in the days since the bust which has caused them to extend their drug poisoning alert.

Chief Betts came close to recognizing this fact when he stated in response to a Board member’s question about the ramifications of a large drug bust on the local community. 

“The drugs themselves are toxic, but when they are cut with other substances they are doubly so,” he told the Board while promising that his force would also be looking into the rates of drug-related crime in the days following the culmination of a large operation such as the January 25th bust. 

On February 7th, Peterborough Public Health reported that January saw the loss of ten lives in Peterborough city and county, Curve Lake First Nation, and Hiawatha First Nation due to drug poisonings and overdose.

“There will be a backfill on this,” Betts admitted before adding that “people need our help…we have to do our part and unapologetically so.”

Complaints Down Overall, but Remain Constant in Key Areas:

The Peterborough Police Service divides complaints into three categories: Public, Internal, and Local. The number of complaints in the fourth quarter of 2022 were down significantly over the same period in 2021, largely due to fewer local complaints, which is defined in the report as “less serious and informal matters that citizens raise against officers/civilian members or protocols of the Service.”

During the meeting, this was explained as arising from the fact that the illegal parade advertised as the “Miracle on George Street” which occurred in December of 2021. This event resulted in a flurry of complaints from the public about the conduct of police who, depending on whether they believed in the ongoing pandemic, either thought the police had let the whole thing slide or were overly punitive in their enforcement of the Highway Traffic Act.

Rates of Public and Internal complaints remained constant over the same period in 2021 as well as the year overall. 

Use of Force: 

Overall, the use of force statistics by the Peterborough Police force has been declining over the past five years while the nature and type of force is changing.

While the use of firearms by police returned to an average level of sixty reported instances in 2022 after a notable increase to eighty-five in 2021, the use of Empty Hand Techniques and Conducted Energy Weapons (CEWs) or tasers, were down significantly. 

Pepper spray has not had a reported use since 2020, which Chief Betts explained is due to the preference for the use of CEWs, which he noted tend to be safer for the officer involved. 

The use of pepper spray, referred to as Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) throughout the report also requires extensive decontamination of the scene, the subject of arrest, and usually the officers themselves. CEWs, Betts mentioned, don’t carry any of these concerns beyond the officer’s requirement to provide first aid following their use. 

The report also touched upon the force’s intention to begin recording “Officer Perception of Subject’s Race” for internal use as it pertains to the use of force in 2023. Previously, the force had merely recorded it to fulfil Provincial reporting requirements and had not kept this data for its own use. 

Annual Strip Searches Report: 

The race data for strip searches is only covered for part of 2021 and 2022. The report noted that a new procedure was enacted in August of 2021 and from then until the end of that year, six strip searches were conducted by the force.

In 2022, a total of fourteen strip searches were reported by the service. Of these seven involved a Black citizen, two involved an Indigenous citizen, and four involved a white citizen. Race-based data was not collected for one of these searches. 

Based solely on a percentage of the population, it’s obvious that racialized, specifically Black and Indigenous people, are disproportionately being subjected to strip searches in Peterborough and is indicative of systemic issues resulting in racialized individuals being over-policed and often experiencing greater use of force. 

Interestingly, the subject of race-based data collection was skipped over by the Board beyond stating that 2023 would see them begin collecting it internally for use of force. 

Annual Armoured Rescue Vehicle (ARV) Report:

The Peterborough Police Service’s Armoured Rescue Vehicle (ARV) was donated to the City in January of 2020 by the Ontario Power Generation and it became operational in 2021. The force is required to make a record of its use and document the number of times it was operational throughout the previous year to report to the Board annually. 

In 2022, the ARV was deployed a total of seven times - three operationally and four for training purposes. 

The operations included aiding in the execution of search warrants in March and April as well as an instance involving the clearing of a vehicle following a shooting which stemmed from an incident in August. 

In regards to the ARV usage report, Bob Hall related his will to “convey that the public is weary of the militarization of the police service.” 

“I don’t want to lose public confidence in the service,” Hall went on before asking for clarification on a point about who authorizes the ARV’s use, which had seemingly changed from requiring the Deputy Chief or Chief’s sign-off, to only that of an Incident Commander. 

“I don’t know when the change happened but I am a little concerned that the Board wasn’t consulted,” he said before ensuring those present that his qualms were not with the policy process itself, but with the lack of Board consultation specifically. 

Chief Betts addressed the concerns of the public as they relate to militarization, noting the differences in the way Canadian forces acquire equipment, namely that in the States, local police forces are able to buy surplus military equipment. 

He also admitted that in many ways, as a profession, the police don’t do a good enough job explaining the rationale behind certain decisions, citing the decision to change the arrangement of equipment around an officer’s body. This idea, while rooted in military design, actually had its impetus as a health and safety concern for officers as better weight distribution prevents injury.