Saskatoon police looking to hire 8 more officers to patrol safe consumption site

The Saskatoon Police Service is hoping to hire eight more officers as the city prepares to allocate more resources related to the opening of a safe consumption site next year.

Saskatoon police are asking for more than $1.6 million over a two-year period for the creation of a “Community Mobilization Unit.” The request is tabled for a Nov. 6 committee meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners.

“This is a response to supervised consumption, but it’s also a response to an increase in call volumes that have occured (and) have evolved over the last year, especially since the late summer,” Saskatoon Police Chief Troy Cooper said Thursday.

Officers will be tasked with coordinating safety around the safe consumption site, but Cooper said they will also be responding to “existing challenges” in Pleasant Hill and surrounding neighbourhoods.

Cooper added that the need for more officers isn’t just a police response, but a collaborative approach with other public safety partners in the area.

“This is not about supervised consumption, full-stop. This is about the central division of our city that consumes 40 per cent of our police resources, and adding resources to an area that is most-needed,” Cooper said.

The request for more officers happened after the city’s preliminary budget originally proposed three new officers in 2020 and four more in 2021.

Cooper said those plans were put in place roughly six months ago, before multiple crime sprees in Riversdale and Pleasant Hill. Police have reported 10 homicides since then.

“I think the community has spoken fairly loudly about the need for additional police resources,” Cooper said. “We know that things have changed in Saskatoon over the last six months.”

THE SASKATOON POLICE ASSOCIATION RESPONDS

Dean Pringle, the President of the Saskatoon Police Association said he’s glad the chief has asked for more officers, and thinks it’s a good start until they know what the supervised consumption site looks like.

“It’s going to be high demand. There’s a lot of vulnerable people. We don’t want the community which has already had some challenges, to be further disadvantaged by increased crime,” said Pringle.

Pringle adds, while it’s a good start, it falls short of what the Saskatoon force needs as crime across the board in Saskatoon increases. He said an audit done in 2017 identified a need for 38 more officers.

“I don’t want our shortage to get lost in the narrative of the injection site staffing, because they’re two separate issues — both equally important, but we really have to staff both, ” said Pringle.

Pringle said the current staff shortages are taking their toll on the officers trying to keep up with the increased number of calls they are responding to.

“Right now we’re so under-resourced, we can’t even offer a basic level of service without invoking the emergency clause…that’s pretty scary.”

Pringle also said many in the membership are frustrated by what they say is a disconnect with the decision makers.

“The rank and file members are kind of wondering where the disconnect is — you have the head of the union calling for it, you have the head of the police service calling for it. So is it with the police commission, is it with council, is it with the mayor? Why are we not being properly resourced?” said Pringle.