Following 12 shootings in January, the police union says an understaffed force and changes to street checks have contributed to the violent start to 2018.
“You are seeing a correlation between our lack of interacting with the public and an increase, sharp, dramatic increase in the amount of shootings,” said Matt Skof, police association president.
New provincial regulations on street checks, or carding, were passed in 2016 in response to criticism that police were targeting people based on race. Since, recorded interactions have drastically decreased from roughly 4000 in 2016 to four in 2017.
Under the new rules officers can only ask for information when investigation a crime, suspicious activity or gathering intelligence.
Police Chief Charles Bordeleau says the new regulations could be linked the increase in violence.
“It’s clear across the province there’s some anecdotal information that some would draw a conclusions or parallel,” Bordeleau said.
“We haven’t seen the evidence of that, but certainly we hear that anecdotal information from our officers and recognize that could be a factor. I think there are many other factors.”
As for staffing concerns, Skof says Ottawa is short 200 officers.
“From 2012 until the end of 2018, even with the addition of 75 officers, the police department has been shrunk - we are going only back to 2012 levels. This was an intentional restriction places on themselves due to budget.”
Bordeleau says more officer have been realigned to work on the shootings – calling them a top priority for officers.