City police used force in 98 cases in 2015: Report

THUNDER BAY – City police reported using force in 98 cases last year.

Thunder Bay Police Service Sgt. Rino Belcamino, tactical commander of the Emergency Task Unit, presented the annual use of force report to the police services board at their monthly meeting Tuesday morning.

“It’s strictly based on the individual’s reaction to police being on scene,” Belcamino said in an interview after the meeting when asked about how it’s determined whether to use force. “If the person escalates their behaviour or they’re doing something that’s going to harm an innocent person an officer has no option whatsoever. We must interact.”

The 98 instances are a decrease from 130 one year ago, though Belcamino said the number of incidents is largely out of the control of officers.

The most common officer response was to use tactical communication, which can include commands given to a subject and crisis intervention techniques to attempt to de-escalate a situation.

While it would seem to make sense for communication to be used on every call, there are situations where it can be a disadvantage.

“For instance, I might arrive on a scene and something may be happening where I may not have the opportunity to start to use tactical communications to try to de-escalate it. It might require me to just jump out of the car and react,” Belcamino said.

“Sometimes in order for a tactical advantage an officer may not want to give away their positioning and by talking it might give up their position, which may force them to actually increase their use of force.”

The second most common tactic used by officers was drawing their weapon, though no shots were fired at people. Officers deployed their firearms 34 times, all on animal related calls.

City police officers have not been involved in a civilian shooting since 2005.

Police Chief J.P. Levesque views that as a sign training is effective and that officers use other options first rather than relying on their weapons.

“We do a great amount of work with our officers, the root qualification component and the tactical communication component teaching people how to talk in stressful situations and the stress of being in those situations is paramount,” Levesque said.

Other types of force used include using empty hand techniques, impact weapons, aerosol weapons and a conducted energy weapon, also known as a TASER.

Officers had a total of 43,153 interactions with the public in 2015.