VPD respond to OPCC report claiming there’s been a jump in street checks

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Vancouver Police are responding to a recent report from the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner that there has been an increase in street checks in the city, but the force says that’s not the case.

The VPD points out each of its 600 front-line members writes, on average, less than one a month.

However, a report from the OPCC says there is an “increasing trend in complaint allegations involving police practice of conducting street checks.”

But, admittedly in an email to NEWS 1130, it says it doesn’t have any specific data to back that up.

“The Commissioner sent that letter as a result of an upward trend in those types of complaints. We don’t have any statistics specific to how many but I can say it is not very many, we just observed an upward trend,” says the agency’s Deputy Police Complaint Commissioner Rollie Woods.

VPD Chief Adam Palmer says he’d like to see some numbers. “I can tell you because every week I do have a meeting with my Professional Standards investigators, and we talk about any incoming complaints that have happened with the police over the prior week and we just don’t see those types of complaints coming to VPD.”

The OPCC has made a recommendation to the Vancouver Police Board that it revise its procedures and practice of street checks.

Palmer adds they are working on a policy right now and a draft should be completed sometime this fall.

“We work closely with [the OPCC] and we’re on really good terms with them but as far as that particular issue — I haven’t seen the data. I’ve got no data to suggest that is the case. I’d be happy to see data if someone [could] provide it.”

Between April 1st, 2015 and March 31st, 2016, there were 530 complaints filed province-wide with the OPCC, which is a civilian office of the provincial government that oversees complaints, investigations involving municipal police in BC. And of the 777 allegations the office looked into last year, more than half were considered unsubstantiated.

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today