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Greater Victoria police forces issues and news


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#2681 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 March 2023 - 04:02 PM

Nayib Bukele’s permanent state of emergency

The Salvadoran president’s fierce war on gangs has quelled rampant violence and gained him unprecedented popularity while exacting a heavy toll on rights and freedoms

https://english.elpa...?outputType=amp


Amid an outcry about human rights abuses, Bukele is achieving what once seemed impossible. The gangs are being dismantled in strongholds they controlled for decades, places where even the police didn’t dare go.

______

Four years after taking office, his approval rating is around 90%. Everyone expects him to win reelection next year after a recent legal maneuver circumventing the constitutional one-term limit. The reason? The overwhelming success of his war on gangs. According to government data, the country experienced 20 murders daily in 2015. Today there are less than three. Back then, El Salvador had a homicide rate of 103 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest in the world; in 2022, the year ended with a rate of 7.8 per 100,000.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 March 2023 - 04:05 PM.


#2682 pontcanna

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Posted 21 March 2023 - 07:18 PM

West Shore RCMP experiences 105% increase in child **rnography investigations

2023-03-20 

The West Shore RCMP Serious Crime Unit is responsible for investigating a variety of serious criminal offences like Attempted Murder, Aggravated Assault, Robbery and Firearms related offences. However, the majority of their investigations consist of crimes like Possession, Distribution and Production of Child **rnography.

In 2022, there were 39 Child **rnography investigations representing a 105% increase compared to 2021 when there were 19 Child **rnography investigations.

The officers in the Serious Crime Unit are extremely dedicated and invest enormous effort into investigating these terrible crimes. Though the number of these investigations appears to be increasing year over year, the unit takes some comfort in these recent convictions, said Sergeant Thana Hodge, West Shore RCMP Serious Crime Unit.

Recent convictions:

February 2023, a 33-year-old male was convicted of Possession of Child **rnography and sentenced to a 7 month Conditional Sentence Order and 18 months probation. The investigation took approximately 8 months to complete;


January 2023, an 18-year jail sentence was given to an adult male convicted of Sexual Assault, Invitation to Sexual Touching, Possession and Production of Child **rnography. This investigation took approximately 1 year to complete;

December 2022, a 28-year-old male was convicted of Sexual Assault and Sexual Interference and was sentenced to 2 years less a day in jail. This investigation took over 2 years to complete;

December 2022, a 30-year-old male was convicted of Possession of Child **rnography, Distribution of Child **rnography and Counselling (others) to commit an offence. He was sentenced to 4 years in jail. This investigation took approximately 1 year to complete;

November 2022, a 40-year-old male was convicted of being in Possession of Child **rnography and sentenced to 18-months jail and 2 years Probation. This investigation took approximately 2.5 years to complete;

September 2022, a 28-year-old female was convicted of Luring a Child under the age of 16 and 2 counts of Sexual Assault. She was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail. This investigation took 1.5 years to complete;

In order to protect the identity of the victims, further details of the above noted investigations will not be released.

Child **rnography investigations take anywhere from months to several years to complete as they are complex in nature and rely heavily on policing resources. Investigators are almost always required to obtain production orders, search warrants, conduct surveillance and use the skills of Tech Crime Specialists to analyse enormous amounts of digital data. We thank our officers for their unwavering dedication.

If you are a victim of crime, help is available. Contact your local police to report a crime and visit Victimsinfo.ca for more information and resources.
 
Released by

Cpl. Nancy Saggar
Media Relations Officer
West Shore RCMP


#2683 pontcanna

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Posted 22 March 2023 - 12:54 PM

Internal VicPD survey results show both white and racialized participants feel discriminated against 
 
Screenshot 2023-03-22 13.51.55.png
 

The results of an internal VicPD workplace survey reveal a stark contrast between the views and experiences of the department’s white male members and those of its white female and racialized members. Among the findings: 76% of white survey participants agreed with the statement that VicPD values diverse racial or ethnic identities and experiences, while only 16% of racialized participants did.

Commissioned by the Victoria and Esquimalt Police Board and conducted by the Victoria-based nonprofit The Inclusion Project (TIP), the survey aimed to determine the “existence or pervasiveness” of discrimination based on race and gender within VicPD. Its findings were quietly released in a report to the police board in December 2021.

“Racialized participants do not seem to believe that their experiences are valued at VicPD; the comments from white participants suggest that this might be true,” the report says.

The survey was conducted over the course of ten days in late September 2021. Participants completed a series of questions online, providing the researchers with both statistical and descriptive data.

A stated limitation of the findings is the “inherent lack of diversity” within the department. Of the 115 VicPD members who participated, only 11% identified as a visible minority; most of them Indigenous. TIP did not provide responses to the questions Capital Daily sent about the survey.

“Interestingly, both white and racialized participants felt that they were being discriminated against based on their race,” the report says, “while participants who identified as men and those who identified as women felt that they were being discriminated against based on their gender. This indicates that there is an overall feeling that needs are not being met, in correlation to identity.” 

 

Screenshot 2023-03-22 13.52.14.png
Responses to the question "Have you ever experienced or observed a negative, degrading, hostile or abusive comment or occurrence within VicPD that was connected
to you or someone else’s race or ethnicity?" [Note: In the third segment, reflecting the handful of respondents who did not disclose their gender, there appears to be a graphing error for the Racialized responses]


BIPOC officers have told Capital Daily they’ve endured racist slights and microaggressions at VicPD for decades, ranging from recent comments about Indigenous people “*****ing about” residential schools to a jokey remark a few years after 9/11 implying that two South Asian officers talking quietly together were plotting to blow up a plane. Two discrimination complaints against VicPD, by an Indigenous constable and a former civilian employee of colour, are currently in front of the Human Rights Commission.

...While responses from women and racialized participants repeatedly made reference to an “old boys’ club” that advantages white males, white male participants repeatedly denied the existence of systemic racism, both inside and outside the department.

Some of the white men did, however, perceive discrimination at VicPD—as targeting themselves.

“Being a straight Caucasian male is a guaranteed ticket to the bottom in this place,” one noted.

“I am a white male so therefore I will never be promoted,” offered another.


...VicPD referred Capital Daily’s questions about the workplace survey to the police board; the lead co-chair of the police board, Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, said that TIP’s findings helped inform VicPD’s Roadmap for a Healthy and Inclusive Workplace. The roadmap’s action plan includes hiring an external facilitator to assist with the creation of an equity, diversity, and inclusion strategy, which would include anti-racism education and training.

Desjardins would not say whether, in the 15 months since the board received  TIP’s findings, VicPD has implemented any of its recommendations or made any of the changes outlined in the roadmap.
 

 



#2684 Nparker

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Posted 22 March 2023 - 01:01 PM

Using the terms "white" or "whites" to described Caucasians is racist.


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#2685 Nparker

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Posted 22 March 2023 - 01:33 PM

The use of "settler" or "colonial" as pejoratives is also offensive.



#2686 todd

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Posted 23 March 2023 - 08:27 AM

33F544F0-97D0-4828-91BF-B262FF851DB6.jpeg
https://www.timescol...patrols-6744434

Is Victoria a **** hole yet?

#2687 spanky123

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Posted 23 March 2023 - 08:44 AM

"Ever" is a long time. A much more meaningful survey would ask about experiences over the past 2 years as an example if the intent was to try and determine whether the environment is improving.

 

Can't do anything about a comment made 20 years ago (ie 9/11).



#2688 pontcanna

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Posted 25 March 2023 - 04:12 AM

raeside.png


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#2689 pontcanna

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Posted 25 March 2023 - 04:25 AM

Family-friendly and safe? You are mistaken

Public safety in the downtown core is already highly questionable. Pulling this funding from the police is another example of an ill-informed and inexperienced council making poor decisions at the expense of those who are expected to patronize downtown.

The city core is largely a dirty and increasingly unwelcoming area in various phases of redevelopment or disrepair.

It is not a safe place to walk at night. Recently, a visiting family member and his family narrowly escaped being pepper sprayed by a group of what appeared to be young males on the corner of Yates and Douglas at 8 p.m.

Thankfully, the assailants’ plans did not go as expected and my family was able to remove themselves in short order.

The point being, what do people think about Victoria these days? Why do people come to this once-beautiful city? A mistaken belief that is welcoming, family-friendly and safe.

Is that still the case?

Chris Forester, Victoria

Putting bar employees at greater risk

...If Victoria council’s plan is to discourage people from the downtown area, the defunding of late-night police patrols is a great way to do it.

The thought that the staff of bars and restaurants are put in harm’s way in having to control the bad behaviour of patrons and passers-by is so callous and dangerous...

Wendy Wardle, Cadboro Bay

Police chief’s words must be heard

...Elected politicians will continue to downplay the issues facing Victoria; the unhoused using drugs and making downtown unsafe.

Media on Twitter showing the streets of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and arguably the best example of the worst-case scenario, Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, shows where Victoria is headed.

I moved out of Victoria in 2019 to raise my son in Langford. By the age of six, he had witnessed a suicide, a blood-covered man running barefoot at full speed down Fisgard with a knife (a summer Sunday afternoon with the sun shining) and enough overdoses to be asking me too many questions about why people use drugs.

...Police Chief Del Manak unfiltered is what ­Victoria needs.

Ryan Armstrong, Langford

Victoria council, beware the Musical Ride ploy

...Chief Constable Del Manak’s outrage over Victoria council cutting a supplementary budget item of $220,000, which has been used to fund four officer late-night weekend patrols of downtown bars, is a predictable and transparent gambit.

So, if it is so crucial to public safety, identifying violent criminals etc. etc., why isn’t it funded from the police budget as one of the force’s top priorities?

Whenever the RCMP is faced with budget cuts, the first thing it offers up is the Musical Ride. The government, understandably, says no and backs off.

Manak is trying on the same thing with council. Councillors should tell him to fund these patrols as his first priority and make cuts elsewhere to less high-profile and essential programs...

Hugh Stephens, Victoria

Take back the night in downtown Victoria

...My heart goes out to Victoria Police Chief Manak, who finds himself having to defend a must-have program for police officers to maintain public safety downtown.

If anything, the police budget for these late-night patrols should be increased, not cut.

As a woman, I can no longer walk to see a movie or have a bite to eat without being on guard when I leave the theatre or restaurant to walk home afterwards.

One by one, streets are becoming no-go zones, especially after dark: Pandora, Johnson, Yates, Quadra, View, Douglas.

Take Back the Night has since become an international movement. It’s time we all take back the night in downtown Victoria, and we need to have our local police as partners in this movement...

Valerie Sovran, Victoria

 

Morehttps://www.timescol...at-risk-6757779

 



#2690 pontcanna

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Posted 26 March 2023 - 04:29 AM

Police officers play a valuable role in education
  • Times Colonist
  • 26 Mar 2023 - Geoff Johnson
  • Police officers who feel that they can make a positive difference in the lives of some kids deserve special training before they are assigned to school liaison jobs, Geoff Johnson writes.

As principal of a 400 student K-7 school in New Westminster in the 1970s, one of the most valued members of our “team” was the school liaison police officer from the New Westminster city police.

 

A number of the kids in the school lived temporarily in the neighbourhood because one parent, almost always dad, was absent, having been consigned to the maximum-security federal penitentiary located on the outskirts of New Westminster until it was decommissioned in 1980.

 

As you can imagine, a child living with the remaining parent in the large multi-unit rental on Queens Avenue probably heard a lot about how the police were not to be trusted under any circumstances and were the sole reason dad was in jail.

 

It was into this environment that the young constable who had been assigned as the school’s liaison officer, complete with full street uniform and pistol on his hip, came, every week, to speak to the kids about traffic safety, personal safety and how to defuse conflict situations without resorting to violence.

 

With those kids, for the reasons I’ve explained, it was not an easy task. On more than one occasion, the young constable would come into my office and say: “I don’t know how you folks can do this for 190 days every year.”

 

Morehttps://digitaltimes...282123525761488

 


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#2691 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 26 March 2023 - 04:33 AM

With those kids, for the reasons I’ve explained, it was not an easy task. On more than one occasion, the young constable would come into my office and say: “I don’t know how you folks can do this for 190 days every year.”

 

 

To which he probably replied "well, it's better than having your job of nights, weekends and 240 days per year".  



#2692 pontcanna

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Posted 26 March 2023 - 05:09 AM

Frustration builds as Victoria, Esquimalt councils wrestle with police budget
  • Times Colonist
  • 26 Mar 2023

Victoria and Esquimalt’s unhappy marriage over the cost of policing may be nearing an end after more than 20 years, but it hasn’t made this year’s budgeting process any less frustrating.

 

The municipalities, forced to share the costs of policing since 2002 and whose mayors sit as co-chairs on the Victoria and Esquimalt Police Board, are again complaining about the budgeting process — though for different reasons.

 

Some members of Victoria city council have dismissed the process as a charade as they were left to go line-by-line through the proposed police budget to find savings after the board refused to trim its $69.5-million draft budget to ensure its cost increases did not exceed 6.9 per cent.

 

Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto said Victoria was left with no choice but to try to find savings, which will inevitably lead to an appeal to the province to make a decision.

“And that appeal very often goes in favour of the police board,” Alto said.

 

“It is a charade in the sense that it seems patently unreasonable to expect a municipal council, even though it has a very large and deep reserve of expertise, to be able to bring that expertise in any meaningful way to an assessment of police services.”

 

Alto said it would make more sense to establish a reasonable threshold for spending and leave the experts at the police board and the police department to determine how best to use the money.

 

Esquimalt believes it is overpaying for services it doesn’t need and is, to some extent, subsidizing Victoria’s policing.

 

“We continually go into this situation every year where the board is proposing a budget for two very different communities and there is no satisfaction to be had.”

 

Esquimalt wants to pull out of the shared policing agreement with the City of Victoria, which expires at the end of this year. The township has hired a consulting firm to come up with alternatives.

 

Desjardins said the council expects to hear from Perivale and Taylor Consulting in May or June.

 

Morehttps://digitaltimes...281552295111120

 



#2693 Mike K.

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Posted 26 March 2023 - 07:50 AM

How do Colwood, Langford, View Royal, Highlands and Metchosin do it? The West Shore RCMP covers the same population as does VicPD.

Then there’s Sidney and North Saanich RCMP. How do they do it?

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#2694 LJ

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Posted 26 March 2023 - 07:29 PM

“It is a charade in the sense that it seems patently unreasonable to expect a municipal council, even though it has a very large and deep reserve of expertise, to be able to bring that expertise in any meaningful way to an assessment of police services.

 

COV municipal council, I don't think so.


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Life's a journey......so roll down the window and enjoy the breeze.

#2695 todd

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Posted 27 March 2023 - 09:33 AM

As principal of a 400 student K-7 school in New Westminster in the 1970s, one of the most valued members of our “team” was the school liaison police officer….

Vic High has about 845 students, what other public event of that size doesn’t have officers on hand?


You’re talking about the size of a small town

Edited by todd, 27 March 2023 - 09:50 AM.


#2696 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 01 April 2023 - 07:34 AM

Here is a video of dozens of Vancouver cops literally doing nothing:

 

https://twitter.com/...024373484912642

 

Followed by a terrible VPD PR job:

 

https://twitter.com/...005693845868544


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 April 2023 - 07:35 AM.


#2697 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 01 April 2023 - 12:17 PM

This guy has been on paid leave for 8 years. Good gig.




A judge has found that Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Const. Jason Redmond sexually assaulted an unconscious woman while recording it on his mobile phone, and heard from witnesses that Redmond did it to show the victim "how easily she could be raped when she was drunk," and "to teach [her] a lesson."

In a two-day, judge-only trial at a Brockville courthouse last August, Justice Janet O'Brien heard Crown witness testimonies that she recounted when delivering her decision earlier this year, a court transcript obtained by CBC News shows. Redmond was convicted of sexual assault.

The judge read in her ruling that according to one witness, Redmond was "proving a point" to the victim that she had a drinking problem, and "he made the video to show that anybody could rape her."

Redmond was previously convicted of drug trafficking in 2018 but received only one year of probation and no jail time. He has been on paid leave from the OPP since he was charged in that case in 2015.


https://www.cbc.ca/n...dmond-1.6797839

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 April 2023 - 12:18 PM.


#2698 dasmo

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Posted 01 April 2023 - 02:11 PM

Here is a video of dozens of Vancouver cops literally doing nothing:

https://twitter.com/...024373484912642

Followed by a terrible VPD PR job:

https://twitter.com/...005693845868544


Looks like yelling at the clouds does make a difference. See what happens.

https://twitter.com/...QrcObpkhVXe97Jg

#2699 Mike K.

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Posted 01 April 2023 - 03:15 PM

Not a good look for Van PD.
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#2700 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 01 April 2023 - 03:21 PM

Looks like yelling at the clouds does make a difference. See what happens.

https://twitter.com/...QrcObpkhVXe97Jg


The first video has been viewed over 3.7 million times.

Never have so many cops assembled to do so little.

Why are trans people and their supporters so violent?

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