Police-Encounters-With-People-In-Crisis

service by the public. 1 The front line police officer and the person in crisis are, in that
sense, the central focus of this Review.
10. I have tried to learn the perspective of a front line police officer, and to feel what
it is like to walk in an officer’s shoes, by speaking with a wide array of TPS members of
all ranks from many different parts of the Service, including officers who have had direct
personal experience with fatal and potentially fatal encounters. I have equally tried to
learn the perspective of the person in crisis, and to feel what it is like to walk in the
shoes of a person with mental health issues or a person experiencing emotional crisis by
meeting with people with lived experience of mental illness, meeting with family
members of deceased persons, meeting with many mental health service providers,
participating in an MCIT ride along, and reviewing extensive material on the topic.
11. Although necessarily imperfect, the following paragraphs set out my
understanding of the relevant aspects of these two perspectives.
1. The perspective of the front line police officer
12. I strongly believe based on my personal observations and abundant secondary
evidence that most front line police officers within the TPS have a genuine desire to
fulfill their mandate of serving and protecting the community, and a genuine desire to
avoid causing harm. They have a strong sense of duty. Certainly no officer begins his or
her daily shift wanting to cause serious injury or death, or wanting to be involved in a
dangerous encounter. If they can avoid causing harm, police officers would like to do so.
It is, in fact, the existence of this pervasive desire of TPS personnel to do good that
inspires in me the confidence that this Review will produce positive results.
13. Front line police officers have one of the most challenging jobs that society has to
offer. They are demanded to perform difficult and unpleasant tasks that most citizens
are unwilling or unable to carry out themselves. These tasks often involve risking their
lives in order to control and apprehend people who are violent or otherwise dangerous—
including not only violent criminals, but also people in various forms of crisis who are
not criminals but who may, knowingly or not, be a threat to themselves or others. The
job of the front line officer is one of considerable risk. Officers regularly have to balance
their duty to confront danger (with often very limited information about the nature of
the danger) against the personal risks to themselves—a very challenging task that few
others in society are required to undertake in the same way or to the same extent.
14. The dangerousness of police work highlights two key points that are relevant in
the ongoing effort to reduce the incidence of lethal encounters between police and
people in crisis: (1) the utility of ensuring police are provided with the best available
information about people in crisis and their likely reactions to police behaviour; and (2)
the importance of training police on how best to control people in crisis without the
need for force—that is, training (both at the police colleges and on an ongoing basis at
1
Certain specialized TPS units have also experienced deaths of civilians in connection with police contact in recent years, including
the Emergency Task Force, the Toronto Drug Squad, and the Guns and Gangs Unit.
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