Victoria police disproportionately using force against Indigenous and Black people, data shows

Victoria police have disproportionately used force in encounters involving Indigenous and Black people in recent years, new data from VicPD released following an order from the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner shows. 

The report, which includes data collected from 2018 to 2023, comes as a result of the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner's inquiry into police use of force in the province — the results of which are expected to be released later this year.

VicPD's report provides some initial insight, with the department saying there is an "overrepresentation" of Indigenous people in use-of-force cases. The data also shows that Black people were overrepresented in use-of-force cases.

Indigenous people make up five per cent of the population of Greater Victoria, according to Statistics Canada, but were involved in 17 per cent of VicPD's 1,685 use-of-force incidents between 2018 and 2023. Black people were the subject of three per cent of incidents, while they account for 1.3 per cent of the population.

Use of force, VicPD says, includes a wide range of behaviours by officers, from drawing a weapon or "soft physical control that causes injury to the person or the officer," to shootings.

LISTEN | VicPD data reveals which groups are most impacted by police use of force: 

All Points West8:55Victoria Police disproportionately used force on Indigenous and Black people, new data shows

Data released by VicPD shows a disproportionate use of force on Indigenous and Black people. Former MLA Adam Olsen who has been involved in efforts to reform policing, shares his thoughts on the issue.

Adam Olsen, a former B.C. Green Party MLA and member of the Tsartlip First Nation who served on the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act, said the overrepresentation of Black and Indigenous people in VicPD data comes as a result of inaction by the province and police departments on the committee's recommended reforms. 

"It's not surprising," he said. "There was a pretty substantive reluctance among the policing community to really engage the problem where it is … we do expect them to be able to look internally at their organizations that they run and see that systemically, they've got challenges with racism and discrimination."

Some of the committee's 11 recommendations released in 2022 included the creation of a civilian-led oversight agency for police and public safety workers, for police services to report race-based data along with reviewing and amending their policies and procedures to address systemic racism in policing, and for Indigenous communities to have direct input into their police service.

'Reflective of the justice system overall'

Victoria police responded to 316,491 calls for service between 2018 and 2023. Of them, 1,685, or about 1 in 200, involved use of force.

Fifty-six use-of-force incidents concerned youth, 25 per cent of whom were racialized youth.

Police officers are trained to use crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques prior to and during using force. VicPD says its officers receive training on racial bias, understanding the ongoing impacts of colonization for Indigenous communities, and building positive relationships with Indigenous groups.

The overrepresentation of Indigenous people in these incidents, the report says, "is reflective of the justice system overall, and the over-representation of Indigenous persons in other areas, such as the unhoused population, and does not indicate a choice to use force on one specific ethnicity over another." 

CBC News requested an interview with VicPD Chief Del Manak, who was not available.

VicPD notes the report is lacking "important context," such as who initiated the use of force, what level of force was used and how often, and the type of calls where force was used.

When asked by CBC News why this data was not in the report, VicPD spokesperson Cheryl Major said, "The additional contextual information was not included because it wasn't requested, though I should note that any use of force is always in response to subject behaviour."

Olsen says the police department has a responsibility to publish that additional information, if they feel it is important context for the community to understand.

"It should be more specific if they're going to use the lack of specificity as an excuse," he said.

"If they're going to use that lack of clarity as a way to distract us from what we're actually seeing, then that's a problem."

The Office of the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner declined to comment, saying that they had yet to complete their analysis of the data.

'The current situation isn't good enough'

Olsen says he foresees police reform as a decade-long undertaking in B.C. — one that the province is already two years behind on, due to inaction.

While police departments hold responsibility for this, he says the province needs to address other inequities impacting Indigenous people, including a lack of mental health services and housing.

"It is right to be critical of the police until they fully embrace the systemic nature of the ongoing experience that Indigenous people have in their relationships with policing," he said.

"While they're addressing that, we should also be arguing very strongly to the provincial government that the current situation isn't good enough, where we rely on the wrong service to deliver support for people that they're not adequately trained to do."