Police shift resources downtown: ‘We want people to feel safe in Saskatoon’
Monday, March 23rd, 2015 @ 9:59AM
Saskatoon’s police chief says officers could be reassigned from the force’s drug and gang units to help address public safety concerns downtown.
Chief Clive Weighill said public pressure is mounting to have more officers patrol downtown to deal with things like panhandling and street safety.
“People that are homeless, people suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues, are causing what many people see as a nuisance,” Weighill told reporters Thursday.
As part of this year’s redeployment, 24 officers will be reassigned to patrol duties – either responding to 911 calls or walking the beat – and many of those officers will likely come from the drug, gang and traffic units, he said.
“We want people to feel safe in Saskatoon. We are stretched, but we are going to put more resources downtown.”
Weighill’s comments came on the heels of calls from Saskatoon business leaders to deal with panhandlers. Some want to strengthen the city’s panhandling bylaw, making it illegal for people to beg for change in front of movie theatres or performing arts venues.
During a board of police commissioners meeting Thursday afternoon, Weighill said “things are heating up in the city of Saskatoon crime-wise,” adding that a recent rash of shootings and violence in the city are drug-related.
Moments later, he said the force is facing “a lot of complaints coming from downtown in regards to panhandlers” and announced his intention to redeploy officers from investigative units.
He acknowledged the contradiction in deploying more beat officers at a time when most of the serious crime in the city relates to drugs and gangs.
“There is an absolute disconnect, and that is the challenge of policing. What does the public really want from the police service?” Weighill said.
Like Weighill, Coun. Charlie Clark is not in favour of strengthening or even reviewing the panhandling bylaw.
“I am still resistant to the (thinking) that we can solve these problems by sweeping panhandlers away or pretending it’s not there,” Clark said.
The Saskatoon bylaw bans “aggressive panhandling” and begging for money in front of banks or near ATMs, bus stops and bus shelters.
Previous attempts to make the bylaw more restrictive were tossed out more than a decade ago after court rulings found that several Canadian cities had anti-begging laws that violated panhandlers’ rights.
“Panhandling is something that is still a constitutionally protected activity that people are allowed to do,” Clark said.
Weighill said because of hardfought constitutional protection, arresting panhandlers or even telling them to move along is a difficult task.
“I don’t know what we are going to do. We can’t arrest somebody for panhandling, we can’t arrest them if they’ve only had a couple of drinks, we can’t arrest them if they’ve had some mental health or some substance abuse issues,” Weighill told the committee.
Attention to downtown safety issues was again highlighted in the wake a random knife attack outside Saskatoon’s downtown movie theatre earlier this month.
The final details of redeployment still need to be worked out, Weighill said.
