Eric Girt brings 'softer style' as Hamilton's new police chief

Hamilton Police's new chief is Eric Girt, a longtime deputy chief who has overseen the force's community policing efforts in recent years.

His appointment was announced Wednesday morning by the Hamilton Police Services Board at the central station. 

"This remains a noble endeavour for us all," Girt said after board chair Lloyd Ferguson pinned the chief's badge on Girt.

"I think what we want to do is sustain the development that's happening, the rejuvenation of Hamilton," Girt said. "This is a primary focus in terms of that delivery of public safety. We want people to feel safe in our community, and to come here and develop our community." 

The search for a new chief began after the previous chief, Glenn De Caire, suddenly resigned in December after he'd accepted a two-year contract extension a few weeks earlier. 

The candidates for the position came down to Girt, who became deputy chief in 2006 and has 30 years with the service, and the service's other deputy, Ken Weatherill, who was promoted to that position in 2014.

'The opposite of Glenn'

Girt's contract as chief will be for five years, Ferguson said. 

"Glenn did a lot of good things for this service, but Eric will bring a different style," he said. "He's a bit of a shy person, which is the opposite of Glenn. He wasn't shy. And I think the community is ready for that." 

Girt stopped short of naming specific ways his time as chief will look different.

Girt did not give any specific opinions on a few hot-button current issues that will come across his desk and be discussed in board meetings in the next several months: 

• Body-worn cameras.
• The future of the ACTION team.
• What Hamilton specifically should do in the aftermath of community concerns about carding/street checks.

'Mine that data'

Ferguson said one thing the board learned through a survey effort is that the community wants police to demonstrate more transparency with the media.

Under De Caire, media access was tightened up and police calls that used to go out over a radio system were encrypted and replaced by a sparse "portal" containing one or two words about incidents that may or may not be entered in real time.

Asked about whether the service under his leadership would be more forthcoming with the public and the media about crimes and police activity, Girt answered by saying the service is working with new crime analytics software.

The software will augment the service's tactical and investigative teams, helping the service to paint a broad picture of crime trends as well as "interconnections between crime and criminals," he said.

"We have a vast amount of data that we have collected, and we want to be able to mine that data," Girt said.

Would the service make that data public? Girt said that will depend, but that the service will follow Freedom of Information laws. 

'A softer style'

Ferguson said in January that the board would be promoting an internal candidate for chief. He said Girt has a "softer style" than De Caire.

"We took seriously the association survey when they said that morale is low," Ferguson said then. "This will create excitement if we can promote everyone right down through the organization."

Now the service will work to promote or hire people to fill the deputy position Girt is vacating, and fill the ranks that open up all the way down, Ferguson said.

Questions and answers with the new chief 

In his first day on the job, Girt was light on specifics, answering questions from reporters with largely generalities about public safety. 

Here are a few of the questions he faced in a media scrum after his promotion was announced.

What are the challenges the service is facing?

GIRT: Challenges are daily in policing, with public safety, whether it's emergency response, responding to the complex problems that we have. As you know our approach to dealing with mental health, and those type of issues, is to deescalate situations. We want people to get the help. We want to reduce use of force if we can. But we also need to provide both emergency response for criminal investigations, but also quality of life issues.

What are some priorities you can be more specific about?

GIRT: Our priorities are building relationships, maintaining the public trust. This is critical, and we do that through our daily interactions by acting professionally and providing service.

You have a couple of challenges facing you, one with the random, arbitrary stops. You had a pretty high-profile issue with a city councillor that was just arbitrarily stopped. Is that something that you see as an ongoing issue with the force?

GIRT: The legislation's in place. This has been explored by the ministry. They have done public consultation. The regulation will take effect shortly, most of it in January of next year. … We're working diligently to get things in place for the timelines that are in place in the statute, and to deliver all that training to our front-line officers by the deadline.

How will you repair the broken relationships with minority communities who felt the previous chief wasn't hearing their concerns on street checks and carding?

GIRT: Relationships are maintained on an ongoing basis. We have worked with our community through the course of time in many facets. Not just one community, there are so many communities in Hamilton.

As you know with the Syrian immigrants, we have worked with them to show them what services are available, and then through the course of time build that knowledge base – whether it's domestic violence, what we provide in terms of expectations when we arrive at a call. That takes time to work with and develop. And that's just one aspect. We have the Somalian community, we have many, many communities here. We have done long-term relationships. Aboriginal community dates way back.

Right, but the board chair has acknowledged there are issues and sometimes broken relationships. How do you work on repairing those, not just building ones with newcomers?

GIRT: You work on relationships by working with the people. By meeting with them, listening, finding out what the issues are, and collectively, coming up with a response. It's not just a one-way flow in any relationship. It's important to know what the needs are, to work collaboratively, to move forward.

When the (post-9/11 hate crime) event happened at the Hindu Samaj, our interfaith community got together to work as a collective group to advance the interest of Hamilton. It was a heinous crime, but it was a collaborative effort, and for me, that stands out as a hallmark of how do you do this. 

kelly.bennett@cbc.ca | @kellyrbennett