Cadets and uniformed officers to ride Transit buses

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This article was published 01/02/2016 (3860 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Plans for police officers to ride public transit buses are going ahead in response to an increasing number of reported assaults on bus drivers.

Cadets and uniformed downtown police officers will be riding Winnipeg Transit buses, according to a report police chief Devon Clunis issued to the city’s police board prior to its upcoming meeting.

The police service has confirmed funding with Winnipeg Transit to have cadets randomly patrol on buses and in bus shelters as part of their shifts, the report says. As well, on-foot officers on downtwn patrol will be expected to ride the bus in high-crime areas or spots the police service’s crime analysts have pinpointed. Foot patrol officers will also ride the bus to get to where they’re going downtown.

Clunis’s report says the plan is already in the police service’s current budget. A spokesman for the Winnipeg Police Service said in an email cadets have been riding transit buses since early 2015 and that the addition of uniformed foot patrol officers means “our members will be better positioned to ensure that those using and providing public transit do so in a safe environment.”

Winnipeg Police Association will object

But the Winnipeg Police Association says it will formally object to having cadets patrol transit buses – a violation of the police service’s collective bargaining agreement, says WPA president Maurice Sabourin.

He said the cadets, who are not sworn police officers and don’t carry guns, currently ride the bus only to be visible to the public – not to investigate assaults or other crimes. The collective agreement prohibits cadets being used for “special enforcement,” and that’s what the WPA argues transit patrol is.

“It’s going to place them in probably some unnecessarily dangerous situations,” Sabourin said. “The cadets do not have firearms, they don’t have access to Tasers, and to place them in situations that are violent with no escape route, especially when the bus is moving, I think is not in their best interest.”

Winnipeg’s auxiliary cadets are equipped with batons and pepper spray and they receive use-of-force training, but they don’t have the power to investigate crimes.

In October, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505 president John Callahan went before the police board to make the case for police to ride buses to deter assaults against bus drivers. There were 60 attacks on transit drivers last year, compared with 39 in 2014 – a 54 per cent increase, as well as more reports of drug deals, thefts and passenger assaults happening on the buses. Callahan wanted officers to ride the buses undercover, and said he believed it could happen at no cost to the police service. But he said Monday the police service’s commitment, which includes only cadets and uniformed officers, not plainclothes police, is a step in the right direction.

“There’s been a big increase in crime as of late, so I definitely think there was a need for it, and the Winnipeg Police Service is coming through, so it’s a great day,” he said.

“I think people are going to see that it’s something that’s needed right now,” Callahan added. “We need to get things back to a manageable level and then we can probably move forward with education and with Transit’s own foot patrol (transit inspectors), but right now it’s at a point where I think a police presence is much-needed.”

Allard ‘thrilled’

The plan follows a police project in November that saw some plainclothes officers riding transit buses, Callahan said.

“We’ve had our members reporting to us that they’ve had plainclothes officers on their bus and a couple of times, they’ve had them remove people who had been unruly – so this might be something that’s just ongoing, and it might not be official, but hey, we’ll take it,” he said.

Winnipeg city councillor Matt Allard (St. Boniface) said Monday he is “thrilled” to see officers on buses.

“It’s really recognition that the bus is a public space and that police presence is a welcome addition,” said Allard, who spoke in support of the motion along with Daniel McIntyre councillor Cindy Gilroy at a police board meeting last fall.

The move is a step toward reducing fare evasion and protecting bus drivers and passengers, Allard said.

It’s all part of Winnipeg Transit’s safety campaign, launched in mid-January, which included posting signs on buses alerting passengers to the city’s transit bylaw and transit’s ridership code of conduct.

Other cities, including Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, have transit police aboard their public transit systems – peace officers typically employed by the transit agency who enforce transit bylaws and have the power to make arrests.

The city’s police board, which provides civilian oversight to the police service, is expected to discuss the issue at its next meeting Friday, Feb. 5 at city hall. Board chairman Coun. Scott Gillingham said he will wait until then to comment on the issue.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca