Winnipeg is entering an era of American-style G.I. Joe policing

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/12/2015 (3561 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was last year, in the aftermath of what appeared to be another racially motivated police shooting of a young African American male, that the resulting protesting and invading-foreign army-like response from the Ferguson, Mo., cops prompted U.S. President Barack Obama to speak out about an issue that Canadian police services are only just beginning to confront.

The militarization of local law enforcement.

And about the post-9/11 federal government funding that has driven it.

“I think it’s probably useful for us to review how the funding has gone,” Obama said. “How local law enforcement has used grant dollars, to make sure that what they are purchasing is stuff they actually need. Because there’s a big difference between our military and local law enforcement and we don’t want those lines blurred. That would be contrary to our traditions.”

That word — “need” — was on my mind Wednesday when I stopped in at the Winnipeg Police Service’s hurriedly called news conference.

The topic du jour was a sensitive one for the service, and given how the decision was made — quietly behind closed doors inside the Public Safety Building — police Chief Devon Clunis should have been there.

Instead, Supt. Gord Perrier was sent to face the media and answer questions about the surprise purchase of a military-style armoured vehicle.

At least it was a surprise to most everyone but police. And, even as late as last month, to the gobsmacked police board.

But before we get to the why of that secrecy, we need to address the “need” for an armoured vehicle the manufacturer named after the famed fighting men from Nepal who serve in the British army: the Gurkha.

Perrier said it was needed for public and police safety, which is a message that should resonate with everybody, of course.

Politicians in particular.

The tactical unit — the guys who dress up like they’re leaving to take on the Taliban — will be transported in the bullet- and ballistic-resistant vehicle that looks like it should be in a war zone, too. Perrier tried to play-down the military look of the vehicle by suggesting it was made for police work and it would have no guns attached.

But that name — Gurkha — gives it away, as does the manufacturer referencing its military adaptability.

Anyway, the WPS isn’t oblivious to the image problem that comes as part of the Gurhka’s basic package.

And when Perrier was asked about the downside — the creeping militarization of cops in Canada and the full-blown model in the U.S. — he acknowledged the public concern and the WPS’s sensitivity to that concern.

“We did struggle with this decision,” he said of the armoured vehicle purchase, “and it was not easy. But we’re dealing with operations and at the end of the day we have officers and members of the public that are put at risk during those operations and putting a monetary value on life is very difficult.”

The other problem is the militarization of police is not just about the purchase of military-style equipment like our own Air 1 police helicopter, the Gurhka and all those tactical cops dressing like G.I. Joe.

It’s an attitude.

In his 2013 book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, Washington Post journalist Radley Balko refers to that attitude as “a creeping battlefield mentality” within police forces.

It comes in part from training with the military, which the WPS has, and tactical units dressing like them, which they do.

But what that feeds into is the all too common inclination for police officers to see themselves as being separate from the community.

It’s that distancing of police from the public, and the “they-don’t-understand-us” mentality that’s only made wider by climbing into armoured vehicles.

Or, as a report from the American Civil Liberties Union phrased it last year: “Militarization of policing encourages officers to adopt a ‘warrior’ mentality and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies.”

Especially, I might add, minorities.

So maybe the armoured vehicle will make things safer for cops, but I’m not so sure the same can be said for the public.

I think Chief Clunis is sending the wrong message with the purchase, but it’s not the only wrong message.

As I was saying, the decision that Perrier said police struggled with happened without anyone but the police leadership knowing about it.

Clunis and company used a lump-sum budgeted allocation for unspecified equipment to buy the vehicle, but by hiding the controversial purchase until it was a done deal, the WPS leadership sent that other wrong message: about accountability and transparency. Clunis, it would seem, couldn’t even be transparent with the police board legislated to watch over him and the service he leads.

The police board and Clunis have since agreed that kind of major purchase won’t happen again without the board’s approval.

And as police board chairman Scott Gillingham assured me late Wednesday: “The board would not want to see the militarization of the police service.”

I’m afraid it’s too late for that.

The Gurkha is already out of the garage.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca