Police continue to defend anti-mandate protest response

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This article was published 04/03/2022 (1324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Police Service has shared more detail of its hotly debated response to the weeks-long downtown protest against COVID-19 restrictions.

Following complaints delayed law enforcement left area residents and workers to suffer for too long, police stressed Friday the response was focused on keeping the peace.

“I’m happy with the outcome of the event. It’s pretty rare to have a gathering that went that long, with no violence, no mass arrest, no use of force, so that part of it was good. It doesn’t take away from what the community experienced down there. People that live and work in the immediate area, they took the brunt of it, no question about it,” police Chief Danny Smyth told reporters.

Smyth’s comments followed an extensive discussion on the incident at a meeting of the Winnipeg Police Board.

The February anti-mandate protest delayed traffic and created excessive noise around the Manitoba legislature, leading many to question why traffic and bylaw offences weren’t resulting in tickets.

Police focused primarily on public safety, said police Supt. Dave Dalal, who led part of the response.

“We aim to minimize disruptions to the community, without escalation, whenever possible… Sometimes arrests are necessary, sometimes ticketing is necessary, sometimes discretion is the correct decision,” Dalal said Friday.

The protest attracted about 150 full-time participants each day, with peak weekend attendance sometimes exceeding 1,000, he said.

Police received about 168 noise complaints.

In addition to a previously reported arrest linked to a vehicle-pedestrian collision, one other person was arrested for causing a disturbance; no tickets were issued, Dalal said.

A total of 239 different Winnipeg police officers were assigned at various times to cover the protest, which cost the department about $100,000 worth of overtime.

Police learned on Feb. 1 the protest would begin Feb. 4, Dalal said. Police immediately contacted organizers to begin negotiations, he said.

He credited those talks over the following weeks for helping ensure emergency vehicles could access the area, generated noise gradually lessened, and the space occupied by the protest shrunk over time.

“I am confident that the tactics we took were appropriate at the time to keep on a path of peaceful resolution,” said Dalal.

Issuing tickets could have had unintended consequences, he said.

“Going down to ticket one person, (you can be) surrounded by those who are supportive of that person and it can cause a larger police response… Ticketing is an escalation, and we are constantly in de-escalation mode.”

Police plan to share further details of their post-mortem assessment of the response with the police board; Smyth told media he’s not sure if that will take place publicly.

During Friday’s meeting, some Winnipeggers who live near the protest site said it caused a major disruption in their lives and accused police of failing to address it.

“After about day two of the occupation, people gave up on police and reporting the incidents because it was clear nothing was going to be done,” said Omar Kinnarath, an organizer with Defend Winnipeg, which carried out a counter protest.

In addition to excessive vehicle honking, some protesters drank alcohol and urinated in public, Kinnarath said, adding some residents moved in with friends or stayed in hotels to escape the disruption.

Abdikheir Ahmed, co-chairman of the Police Accountability Coalition, questioned the “hands-off approach,” as residents complained of sleepless nights.

“The Winnipeg Police Service failed to protect their rights. We feel that this is not the way to respond (after) people’s lives were disrupted for weeks on end,” said Ahmed.

Prior to Dalal’s presentation, Coun. Sherri Rollins accused the police of failing to provide enough detail about the protest response, urging board members to either ask additional questions or resign from the oversight body.

“If they cannot muster a question… then, for sure, they should resign,” Rollins told reporters.

The board engaged in a lengthy question period on the topic later in the meeting.

Coun. Markus Chambers, who leads the police board, said he appreciated the department’s efforts to avoid using force.

“I know for a lot of Winnipeggers, it seemed like there was inaction but there was action being done by the police, and the fact that it came to a peaceful resolution, I was happy with that,” he said.

However, Chambers said he would have preferred to see police share more details of their response with the public sooner.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga