No force in 'vast majority' of well-being checks, Winnipeg police chief says after shooting, Taser incidents
Chief Danny Smyth addresses issue in wake of fatal shooting Sunday, St. Boniface incident on Wednesday
Winnipeg's police chief is defending how officers respond to mental health calls in the wake of the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old man this past weekend, and a separate incident where a man was shot with both a foam round and a stun gun by officers.
"The vast majority of the occurrences that we are involved in do not result in injury and do not require any kind of use of force, but sometimes it is unavoidable," Chief Danny Smyth said at a Thursday news conference focused on a Wednesday incident in Winnipeg's St. Boniface area, where a man was taken into custody after he was shot with a foam round and a Taser by police.
That comes just days after Winnipeg police shot and killed Afolabi Stephen Opaso, 19.
Police said they responded Sunday afternoon to a call about a man, possibly armed, who was acting erratically in an apartment on University Crescent. There were two other people in the apartment at the time.
Smyth said on average in recent years, police have responded to close to 21,000 well-being calls annually — surpassing the number of calls related to domestic incidents, which at one time were the most common type of service calls, he said.
Less than half of one per cent of well-being calls result in any type of use of force, according to Smyth.
"And I'm not even talking about lethal force. So that's been consistent for many, many years," he said.
WATCH | Police now respond to more mental health calls than domestic incidents, chief says:
Man shot with foam round
In Wednesday's St. Boniface incident, police say they were called to a child services building on Provencher Boulevard at around 11 a.m. about a man who was trying to drag a woman, who police believe was his partner, out of the building.
When officers arrived, the man grabbed a sharp pencil and threatened to harm himself with it.
A tactical team was unable to calm him down and shot him with a foam bullet and then a Taser, police said.
After he fell to the ground, the man continued to behave erratically, according to police, reaching for another object to injure himself with.
Eventually he was handcuffed and paramedics sedated him, before taking him to hospital for assessment, Smyth said. A police news release said he suffered "minor injuries."
"This call had a positive outcome. No one was seriously injured, but I can say that these types of calls are trending up in Winnipeg," said Smyth.
WATCH | Smyth says most well-being calls don't involve use of force:
"The circumstances of each of these incidents must be considered at the time when we get the call to determine the appropriate response."
Because the incident involved a less-lethal firearm that injured the man's leg, it's now being investigated by the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba — the watchdog agency mandated to investigate all serious incidents involving police in the province.
Program understaffed
Through a lawyer who is helping them, the family of Opaso — an international student originally from Nigeria who was studying at the University of Manitoba — has said he was experiencing a mental health crisis when he was shot by police.
At the time the call came in to police, a crisis response unit was not on duty.
The alternative response to citizens in crisis (ARCC) program — which pairs police officers with mental health workers to de-escalate situations — currently only has enough staff to operate Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
But Smyth said the situation involving Opaso wouldn't have been appropriate for the ARCC unit, since it's intended to respond to non-violent situations.
"The distinction here is that it's just not appropriate to send a clinician into a violent situation," he said.
The police chief said he would welcome the expansion of the program — a partnership between the Winnipeg Police Service and the provincial agency Shared Health — but stressed that there aren't enough mental health workers in Winnipeg "or in this country to meet the needs right now."
"That's what's preventing us from getting to seven-day coverage now, is just we don't have enough clinicians to embed."
Earlier this week, Winnipeg police Insp. Eric Luke said the ARCC program has been approved to expand to seven days a week, but neither police nor Shared Health provided a date for when that would happen.