Transit Police left an explosive substance on plane
Posted January 21, 2013 10:55 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It’s a very embarrassing incident for Transit Police, just coming to light today, two years after it happened.
Jordan Bateman with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the group is renewing its call to scrap the force after an officer left an inert explosive substance on a plane at YVR during a training exercise in January of 2011.
“The device was never found; the police records [show] they’re pretty sure it went into an incinerator in YVR,” says Bateman.
The substance was contained in a small glass bottle and did not have a detonator attached, so there was not risk of an explosion on the plane. But Bateman says it took two days for the officer, who had been training a sniffer dog, to discover the substance was missing.
“Two days later, the officer is at home looking through his explosives kit and realizes ‘Oh gosh! I’ve left one somewhere, I’m one short,'” he tells us.
By that time, Bateman says the plane was “long gone” from YVR, had flown to Toronto, and “[was] back into passenger service.”
Anne Drennan with Transit Police says they have learned from the mistake.
“We have changed our practices as a result of the error made by this member. We no longer train on planes in service,” she tells us.
Sniffer dogs are now trained on decommissioned planes at BCIT.
“The officer involved resigned from the force and is no longer in policing,” she notes.
Drennan doesn’t have a dollar amount for the cost to search for the missing explosive substance, but Bateman says it cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.
“The Transit Police, to me, have always been pointless,” he says. “Two thirds of the work they do are fare-checks.”
“The average transit police officer, while making almost $100,000 a year, only deals with 10 serious or property crime files a year.”
Drennan defends the force, saying transit police are well-trained and maintain safety for all transit users.
“We do so much more than check for fares,” she maintains. “And the public’s perception, safety-wise, through polls that we been made aware of recently… has gone up, even over last year.”
Drennan admits the officer made a mistake, and the force has learned its lesson.
