Police-Encounters-With-People-In-Crisis

9. I met with and heard accounts of family members of people in crisis who were
killed. Many of their lives have been changed forever by the profound sadness and
frustration of thinking about what could or should have been done to have avoided such
a disastrous result. Similarly, I met with police officers who witnessed or were otherwise
were involved in the shooting of a person, whose lives, and the lives of their family
members, have been emotionally scarred as a result, and who seek to deal with the
traumatic effects of their involvement.
10. Second, TPS encounters with people in crisis are regrettably part of an
international phenomenon that presents a fundamental challenge to modern society.
Police services across Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New
Zealand—just to mention jurisdictions that we have looked at—face similar challenges in
seeking to improve approaches to deal with the difficult situations that arise. It seems
that no part of the world is free of these potentially tragic human outcomes.
11. In Toronto, in particular, the TPS is dispatched to approximately 20,000 calls for
service annually involving a person in crisis. This is between 2.0% and 2.5% of all
occasions on which police are dispatched. Approximately 8,000 of these events involve
apprehensions under the Mental Health Act. Some of these encounters, sadly, result in
the application of lethal force by police. Between 2002 and 2012, the TPS has advised
that five people considered to be “emotionally disturbed persons” were fatally shot by
police.
12. Third, it is important at the outset to note what this Review and Report are not
about and what they are about.
13. The Review and Report are not about laying blame on anyone. In fact, my
mandate expressly forbids me from dealing with specific incidents, whether or not they
are before the courts in a criminal or civil law context or otherwise. Indeed, I wish to
emphasize that anything I express in this Report is not intended to refer to any specific
event.
14. The basic purpose of the Review is to consider how, going forward, we as a
society can prevent lethal outcomes. Here I would mention that the TPS has done much
in this area that is positive, and is a leader in this subject in a number of respects. But I
believe improvements can always be made—particularly as knowledge, experience, and
examination of the issues increase over time.
D. Chapter topics
15. Generally the chapters in this Report correspond to the headings of the mandate
assigned to me.
16. Chapter 1 is an introduction and brief overview of the Review and this Report.
17. The mandate of the Review, as well as its independence, scope and methodology,
are described in Chapter 2.
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