Program launched to get more officers to high-priority calls
Posted July 13, 2013 12:37 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The Vancouver Police Department is rolling out a new program aimed at helping officers get to more high-priority calls.
A three-year pilot project has been launched in partnership with peace officers.
VPD Cst. Brian Montague says this program, which has more than 40 officers, is a first of its kind in the history of the department. “It’s a similar training to police, just not the extent a police officer goes through. They go through training involving legal studies, they have use of force training.”
Montague says the civilian officers will be in patrol cars and will be at crime scenes, but they won’t be armed. “They’ll be able to help our police officers who have the higher level of skill and training to answer higher priority calls, in-progress calls, hopefully quicker and with more resources.”
He says their duties may change over the coming years.
The peace officers will be used at big events like the Celebration of Light and at Canucks games.
The project is being funded by the city.
