Police Chief Roger Chaffin on why Calgary's homicides, domestic violence may be on the rise
Police Chief Roger Chaffin, a 29-year veteran, is just six weeks into his job after replacing Rick Hanson.
This week he spoke to the Calgary Eyeopener about "policing in a new world," the city's growing crime rates and how that affects public confidence.
Chaffin, former deputy to Hanson, has a $450-million budget and oversees 2,100 officers.
Q: What`s your measure of public confidence in the police right now?
We know through our citizen satisfaction survey, through the police commission, that the measure of confidence still remains very high. We still enjoy an incredibly supportive community, the support of council — we're fortunate to police with that kind of support right now.
Q: There were a lot of homicides this year —31 — it could be breaking a record from previous years. What does that do to public confidence in the police?
When you have that many homicides, that certainly undermines that idea of public safety.
Our goal is to make sure each one of those gets investigated, gets investigated thoroughly … and justice is served. That's a huge challenge when you've had huge numbers like we've had this year.
Q: What's changed in the city, when it comes to the higher murder rate?
You see the presence of some new criminal elements … that certainly have the wherewithal to kill each other. That's something new.
You also see increases in domestic violence and some of the bad violence ... probably attributable to some extent to the economy in the province right now. We have to adapt to that.
Q: Gang violence seems to be in spates. There's one, then two, then three or four over several weeks. Who are these people?
These are people that are known to each other and [there are] several groups at play. The chaotic-ness … is the challenge for both the public and the police to stay on top of it.
We're well positioned by a strong intelligence group within the Calgary Police Service and dedicated investigators. It's a matter of being persistent and getting them before the justice system.
Q: Do you have the resources to get what's needed to be done?
We're organized around our new reality which just happens to be this gang violence that's going on.
We're working very hard to make sure we're well positioned to deal with it with the resources we have.
Q: One of the new realities is that officers are becoming targets. What do you make of that?
It's certainly a discomforting feature of our profession when these violent criminals look at us and try to target us for attack. It's something we are very vigilant about, about the the changing nature of our crime elements.
Q: Break-ins are at a six-year high. How do you combat against that?
There are elements around the city and the presence of new drugs that bring with it collateral crimes like break-ins, like auto thefts, like carjackings.
That's again the persistence of policing, make sure that we are specifically targeting the right people and that we have programs within each neighbourhood. It's simple things … helping people make sure they protect and secure their houses better is enough to deter some people.
Q: How big of a concern is fentanyl? Why is it happening here?
It's a huge concern in the justice and health system. When people are dying at these numbers, it becomes a serious health issue. I'm pleased to see the province working at this as a whole provincial strategy.
You can't arrest your way through addiction problems, but we certainly have a strong role to play in terms of law enforcement.
Q: With the federal government possibly changing marijuana laws, are you prepared for that and are you changing the way you deal with it on the streets?
Currently, the laws that exist today have been with us for many years so we are still enforcing the law as we normally would. We're starting to looking at our American counterparts.
We're going through this now. Washington State and Colorado are good examples of states who've gone through this ... Are there strategies we can learn from? And then and we'll start that process right away just to prepare ourselves.
Q: What do you want to accomplish in the next year?
I'm going to spend a significant amount of time trying to make sure I'm paying attention to the health and welfare of the officers to make sure they are in as good a position as possible to execute their office.
I'd like to spend a fair amount of time on community outreach. Those two issues will be what I spend a lot of time with.
