Regina’s police chief discusses defunding police, crime statistics

Regina’s police chief shared his thoughts Wednesday on calls to defund police in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests.

Chief Evan Bray told Gormley there are many different aspects to the movement — and Bray has varying opinions on each piece.

For one, he’s in favour of increasing police oversight.

“I think that’s really positive. If a community has faith in their police service, but also has faith that there’s a system that is a check and balance to make sure things are done in the proper way, that goes to instilling confidence … I’m very supportive of that. All chiefs in our province are,” he said.

However, what he thinks of as the second part of the movement is more complicated.

Calls to move funding from police to social workers like mental health and addictions counsellors have been common since Floyd’s death at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis. It’s an idea that Bray doesn’t dismiss outright.

“Having other people that are better trained and better able to make meaningful differences in peoples’ lives with us on a 24/7 basis would reduce our workload and probably allow us not to worry about staffing problems,” he said.

He still believes it’s important to have officers on hand to deal with dangerous situations.

“We don’t pick up 911 and the person on the other end of the line says, ‘We’ve got a mental health call. Could you send a mental health professional?’ We get told, ‘Danny’s here, he’s got a machete and he’s trying to kill people,’ and so we step in (and) we defuse the situation,” Bray said. “Then we find out Danny’s got an addiction problem, or perhaps suffers from mental illness. So we de-escalate the situation and that’s the point that we need more help.

“We’re the ones who are going to respond if it’s a volatile and risky situation.”

Bray’s thoughts on the idea of completely disbanding police departments are very clear.

“Policing is a fundamental part of keeping our community safe. We play an essential role, a positive role in our community … To the anarchists who just don’t like police, that’s not a conversation I’m willing to step into,” he said.

Crime statistics

Overall, crime in Regina has seen a decline.

According to Bray, assaults, sexual assaults and robberies have gone down 10 per cent since June of last year. Vehicle theft is down 45 per cent.

However, murders have gone up: There were only four by June of 2019, and there are seven so far this year.

There also has been an increase in arson, break-and-enters and drug seizures, Bray said.