Toronto Star Referrer

Chief concerns

Peel’s top cop sets out goals for ‘progressive’ transformation

JASON MILLER CRIME REPORTER

It has been a time of change for Peel police. In the last year, the service has laid the groundwork for a landmark agreement aimed at restoring trust with Black, Indigenous and racialized communities, launched initiatives to reduce police use-offorce on people in crisis, and took the long-called-for step of collecting race-based data on traffic stops — all while coping with the fallout from several high-profile cases of police violence, not to mention the global pandemic.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Star earlier this month, Peel police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said his goal is for the service to continue stepping into “spaces that are uncomfortable for policing.”

He added: “The vision is to be the most progressive and inclusive police service serving a community.”

Here are seven key takeaways from the Star’s interview.

How to respond to people in crisis

In the last 15 months, Ontario’s police watchdog cleared Peel police officers of criminal wrongdoing in several high-profile deaths, including at least three involving people in mental health crisis.

In the example of 26-year-old D’Andre Campbell, a Brampton man who was shot and killed inside his own home, the Special Investigations Unit ruled that a Peel officer was acting in self-defence, but still highlighted problems with how the service handled a person they knew had a history of mental illnesses.

Speaking to the Star, Duraiappah said his agenda for 2022 includes regaining public trust following Campbell’s death, and others like it. The incidents have caused him to rethink officer training and whether police are “the appropriate resources” to respond to mental health crises, he said.

Duraiappah emphasized that police are being asked to be a panacea for issues they are not the most well-equipped to respond to — such as issues related to precarious housing, mental health and addiction.

“We’re hoping to have an alternative response model that’s not uniform,” he said, the beginnings of which are already happening in a partnership with crisis workers from Canadian Mental Health Association Peel-Dufferin, and a plan to add a crisis worker to 911 dispatch to triage calls that may not need a uniform officer.

When police should turn to outside help

Duraiappah said legislated internal investigations into the SIU cases “didn’t find any deviations from policy,” but did highlight a key trend: “We know some of these people had multiple contacts with police in the preceding months,” he said.

In two years, around 100 individuals have been responsible for over 2,200 calls for services in Peel Region, he said.

That finding led the service to establish a team of 53 officers to triage non-criminal calls and “find those who have acutely elevated risks and needs and, in non-emergent situations, see if they can connect them to services,” Duraiappah said. Last year, those officers connected around 1,600 people with other agencies.

The chief spoke specifically of one person who had made 163 calls to police over four years.

“The moment these officers were able to connect with that individual and connect them to a service, in the whole entire last year, we only had one contact with them.”

Progress on race and human rights

Peel police have been working with the Ontario Human Rights Commission on the terms of a legally binding plan to address systemic racism and discrimination since fall 2020, with a final agreement planned for this year.

On human rights, Duraiappah said the service is gradually shifting the way it interacts with racialized communities, with initiatives including ending police presence in schools, the collection of racebased data and the introduction of officer body cameras.

“There needs to be a shift in how we deal with youth and the demand from our racialized population for more accountability and trust,” Duraiappah said.

“We’ve changed some of the behaviours of our officers from a training standpoint,” he added, noting especially his confidence that the introduction of body-worn cameras with change officer behaviour.

The service has also collaborated with academics to develop a training program for officers responding to racialized youth when they’re in crisis.

“We’re hoping it’s slowly going to reduce some of these interactions,” Duraiappah said.

The value of race-based data

One key part of the human rights commission’s guidance was a call to start collecting race-based data on officers’ interactions with racialized people.

The service’s first step toward that is a pilot project collecting data on police traffic stops.

“Because we will have that type of robust data, we can really see disproportionality and patterns,” said Lorne Foster, a York University researcher called in to help collect and analyze the data.

“If we can detect a pattern, then we can build in training and policy mechanisms to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

Duraiappah noted that 2022 will produce 12 months of data that can give the public a glimpse of the issues and what’s being done to address them.

“We’re not afraid of what we see or hear,” he said.

On road safety

After a record year for road fatalities in 2020 — Peel’s 43 road deaths were double the previous year and more even than in Toronto — Duraiappah said he had to do a rethink of how his officers deal with an “egregious loss of life.”

The change included directing officers to help motorists tackle problem drinking and other addiction issues by referring them to various Peel addiction services. “We’re trying to see if we can off-ramp people,” Duraiappah said.

The service also added 16 officers to a road safety team “their sole job is to focus on high-risk offenders,” he said.

Peel saw a roughly 25 per cent reduction in road-related fatalities in 2021, he added.

The impact of COVID-19

With a 90 per cent vaccination rate across the service, Peel police have managed to cope with COVID-19 without major impact on policing operations even though officers without an approved exception are being placed on leave without pay.

Still, Duraiappah said the service has taken a battering as staff work through record levels of stress and anxiety.

“We have seen an increase in the number of officers requiring support such as psychological help and wellness,” he said.

His priorities for 2022

Looking ahead, Duraiappah said he is focused especially on road fatalities, mental health and addictions, violent crimes and priority populations.

He said Peel was fortunate to see a reduction in shootings and homicides in the last two years, but cautioned there has been an increase in gun seizures on the roadways.

“We do see that 80 per cent of the traceable handguns that we seized are from the United States,” he said.

He emphasized that in cases involving youth, the service is now pulling in other agencies to support the parents and caregivers to engage them in constructive ways such as at-risk career coaching and young men empowerment programs.

“It’s not a soft-on-crime approach,” he said. “It’s a more fulsome approach.”

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2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

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