Victoria police reassess response after Burnaby Mountie killed

One week after the on-duty death of a Burnaby RCMP officer, one police department in the province says it has reviewed the department’s protocol when it comes to calls involving people experiencing homelessness or potential mental health issues.

Victoria Police Department says there are a number of encampments in the province’s capital, and it has reassessed its deployment structure to ensure those responding to the calls and those involved are safe.

“It really was an opportunity for us to look internally at our own deployment model and our strategies and how we’re keeping our officers safe when they’re interacting regularly with many of the unhoused population,” says Police Chief Del Manak.

He says they’ve made some subtle changes, but he’s going into a lot of detail.

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“Just how we make the approach and making sure we keep a level of distance, that de-escalation is paramount, because what we are seeing is after the last 12 months or so, we’re seeing far more weapons. About seven weeks ago, we recovered an unloaded handgun in an unoccupied park here in Victoria. We’re seeing homemade, makeshift weapons, replica guns, and people using baseball bats, hammers, and all sorts of improvised devices as weapons. We’re seeing the tone and the tenor has changed significantly. There’s a lot more active resistance towards authorities.”

He says the department felt it was incumbent upon them to review operations following the incident in Burnaby.

“Making sure we’re engaging in the most responsible, caring, compassionate manner, but safety is at the forefront of everything that we do when we approach campers.”

Right now, VicPD sends two officers to accompany bylaw officers whenever they respond to these kinds of calls, and Manak admits it can drain resources. He acknowledges not everyone is a fan of seeing an officer show up in full uniform to assess these situations, but he maintains that’s not going to change.

“One of the criticisms we sometimes receive is, ‘The police uniform can be stigmatizing for many people who are unhoused, and you should have plain clothes officers… in parks.’ Well, we’re just not going to do that. I can tell you that wearing a police uniform is the first visible presence of the police being there and having that visible presence is advantageous to us when we’re trying to de-escalate a situation … that we know has a high level and potential to escalate quite quickly.

“Yes, they have their body armour and all their tools, which also include a Taser, pepper spray, and less lethal options, but we want to make sure we establish a presence and of course, we’re using a high level of care and compassion.”

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Manak admits he’s not surprised an officer was killed in the line of duty as police have been increasingly dealing with mental health calls.

“Our officers are doing default policing. By default, where other levels of government or other organizations are unable to work 24/7 or don’t have the proper tools, it’s all downloaded to the police. We feel like social workers. We feel like mental health workers, and these are areas we certainly need to enhance and we’re having discussions with government on these areas, [like,] ‘How do we have more mental health workers and how do we have more social workers to help police?’

“But we all know wherever there is criminality, wherever there is violence or threats of violence or weapons, the police are the only tool that will be used. You’re not going to get a paramedic, a social worker, or a street nurse that’s going to engage with somebody who is potentially violent and can cause serious harm. They always take a step back and they call police to de-escalate the situation, make it safe, and then we allow the other professionals and the other organizations to come intervene.”

He feels the system, as it stands in B.C., is broken.

“The sooner we admit that what we’re currently doing is ineffective and we need to really re-think what we’re doing in totality about helping our most vulnerable and our most marginalized, the faster we’re going to come to solutions,” explains Manak.

Burnaby RCMP Constable Shaelyn Yang, 31, died after being stabbed during an altercation while helping bylaw officers deal with a man in a tent at Broadview Park on Oct. 18. Yang was a member of Burnaby RCMP’s mental health and homeless outreach team and had been a Mountie since 2019.

The City of Burnaby says it’s reviewing things to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.

“We have begun our review of what happened. At this early stage, we have not made any decisions about whether any changes to our operational response are required. If this review or any of the other investigations underway point to anything we might change to possibly prevent a tragedy like this ever happening again, we’ll implement as appropriate,” it says in a statement to CityNews.

The suspect in Yang’s killing, 37-year-old Jongwon Ham, has been charged with first-degree murder and after making his first court appearance on Wednesday, is due back in court on Nov. 2.

– With files from Kurtis Doering and Mike Lloyd