Social Policy in Ontario

Former judge Frank Iacobucci sets roadmap for police and mentally ill

Posted on July 25, 2014 in Child & Family Policy Context

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TheStar.com – Opinion/Editorials – A landmark report by former Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci presents 84 sound ways to help prevent the shooting of mentally ill people by Toronto police.
Jul 24 2014.   Editorial

Toronto police answer about 20,000 calls each year involving a mentally troubled “person in crisis” and handling these people represents one of the greatest challenges any officer faces.

Mistakes can result in death, as they did for five emotionally disturbed people shot by police in this city between 2002 and 2012, and to 18-year-old Sammy Yatim, who was gunned down last summer.

Every such death is a failure, not so much by any one individual, but by a system, former Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci says in a landmark report on how Toronto police deal with people in crisis. “The target should be zero deaths,” he said as he released 84 recommendations crafted with that worthy goal in mind.

His 413-page study is a well-balanced, thoroughly researched and compelling effort. It’s too much to hope that no one need ever die again in a showdown between police and people in crisis. But implementing Iacobucci’s recommendations would go a long way toward avoiding disastrous confrontations that result in a vulnerable person’s death, in shattered families, and in police officers wracked by self-doubt and guilt.

“You would have to be robotic not to be moved by the human tragedy of all this,” Iacobucci told reporters.

Some key recommendations stand out — including equipping all front-line officers with body-worn cameras and an increased deployment of Tasers — but pervading the entire report is a powerful sense that the status quo is no longer an option. Society just can’t continue the way it has. And that conviction, beyond all else, offers hope that change will really come.

A welcome signal to this effect was sent by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair as he pledged to implement reform as quickly as possible.

“This is not a report that will gather dust,” Blair told reporters on Thursday. “This is a report that will gather momentum. We will move on the 84 recommendations made by Justice Iacobucci and his team with a strong sense of urgency and resolve.”

That’s what Toronto needed to hear, especially now as we approach the one-year anniversary of Yatim’s shooting. He was behaving erratically but was alone, without hostages, and confined to a streetcar when he was repeatedly shot and then Tasered by Toronto police.

The incident, captured on video and posted online, shocked the city. Blair responded by asking Iacobucci last August to undertake an independent review into use of lethal force by the Toronto Police Service.

In retrospect, that was an excellent appointment. Iacobucci’s recommendations make a great deal of sense. Equipping frontline officers with small “lapel cameras,” documenting their on-the-job interactions, has been called for in the past, including by this newspaper.

More deployment of Tasers (or “conducted energy weapons,” as Iacobucci prefers to call them) is also urged. But this would be done through a pilot project carefully assessing the merits of expanded use of this technology. Iacobucci proposes a major study into the medical effects of being zapped and creation of a central database on how police use Tasers, with input from forces across the country.

Given the potential of this technology to harm, it’s wise to proceed with caution. Other sound recommendations include:

Requiring all new constables to undergo a mandatory “mental health first aid course.”

Making de-escalation of confrontations and successful handling of persons in crisis an important consideration when deciding promotions.

Expanded use of mobile crisis intervention teams, in which a veteran officer is paired with a mental health nurse. And adopting “core elements” of the “Memphis model,” in which certain police officers specially trained to deal with the mentally ill are dispatched to people in crisis.

Preferential hiring of applicants who have a background in community involvement or in mental health services.

Iacobucci’s report offers more than just an effective roadmap for Toronto. Every Canadian police service — municipal, provincial and federal — stands to benefit from reviewing its recommendations. People in crisis, across Canada, deserve better treatment from police.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2014/07/24/former_judge_frank_iacobucci_sets_roadmap_for_police_and_mentally_ill_editorial.html >

Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, featured, ideology, mental Health

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