Surrey RCMP Officer Arrested

On January 30, 2021, it was publicly confirmed that a Surrey RCMP officer has been arrested after an undisclosed criminal investigation. The investigation is reported to be "active and ongoing." The arrested officer has been released pending the approval of charges.

New reports claim that the officer had connections to a gang involved in recent conflicts that have killed several young men in the last few weeks. The officer was allegedly found in a vehicle with gang members. 

It has also been reported that the investigation into the officer has been going on for months. 

Surrey Crime Numbers Down Again, Despite Police Crime Panics

Police and politicians in Surrey have been very effective at driving crime panics and fear politics in the city. This has played a strong part in the push to create a new police force in the city at a staggering cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in transition costs alone.

Yet, once again recently released crime numbers for the city show large decreases in crime, including violent crime, in 2020—something which is true of the last decade plus.

In 2020, police-reported crime in Surrey dropped by 14 per cent. Violent crime was down 19 percent. There were nine fewer murders in Surrey in 2020, a 43 percent decrease from 2019. In 2020 there were 12 homicides in Surrey. In 2019, there were 21 and in 2018, there were 15.

Police have made a great deal of calls for shots fired, something picked up on by media, but, in fact, calls for shots fired declined by 24 percent, from 45 in 2019 to 34 in 2020.

The number of police-reported sexual offences was down six per cent, with the number of sexual assaults decreasing by 12 per cent, though many are, of course, never reported for fear or distrust of police.

Property crime was down 16 per cent from 2019 to 2020 (down 25 per cent in the fourth quarter). This was the case for all types of property crime, with break-and-enters down 17 per cent, auto theft down 14 percent, and theft from vehicles down 19 per cent.

With crime down overall, RCMP made new opportunities for themselves in the COVID-19 Compliance and Enforcement Team, with Surrey bylaw officers, which did thousands of compliance checks and managed to hand out 48 tickets. Only two per cent of their thousands of compliance checks in 2020 were found to be, in fact, non-compliant.

Despite this, crime panics and fear politics still rule in Surrey. And they are driving massive expenditures on policing, funds that could and should be used to sustain community-based resources for health and wellbeing.

Surrey RCMP Dog Attacks and Injures Man

A Surrey RCMP dog attacked a man inside a residence on King George Boulevard near 106th Avenue at around 3:30 AM on the morning of January 23, 2021. The dog unit and Emergency Response Team entered the residence and found a man allegedly hiding. During the arrest a police dog attacked and injured the man. The attack happened at around 8:40 AM. The man is being detained in police custody in Surrey.

COVID Outbreak at Surrey Homeless Shelter

Fraser Health declared a COVID-19 outbreak at the Surrey Emergency Response Centre (SERC) on January 23, 2021. The health authority reports that two staff members and 24 homeless people have tested positive for the coronavirus. 

They have also reported asking those who tested positive to self isolate. This is, of course, extremely difficult for unhoused people. Policing and criminalization have compounded the health threats of COVID. 

The SERC is supposed to provide shelter during the pandemic and claims to have 110 safe spaces. Shelters are too often not safe and are environments in which transmissions can easily occur.

Gang Panic Mountie is 2nd Deputy Chief of Surrey Police: Another New Boss from the Old

And another one. The Surrey Police Service (SPS) has once again brought in an RCMP boss to head up the supposedly new municipal force. This time its gang panic head, and RCMP assistant commissioner, Mike LeSage, who currently serves as chief officer of the province’s anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit. LeSage is the second, of what will be three, deputy chief constable hired on the force.

Surrey police Chief Norm Lipinski served as assistant commissioner with the RCMP’s E Division (British Columbia). Earlier this year Jennifer Hyland, the officer-in-charge of the Ridge Meadows RCMP detachment, was named the force’s first deputy chief.

Lesage took over the anti-gang task force last February. He will join SPS this February as the officer in charge of Surrey’s community policing bureau.

This is a glimpse into what community policing will look like going forward. Community policing is always a code name for targeted and intensified policing of neighborhoods and communities, particularly against racialized people. The police-driven panic over gangs in Surrey has already involved the demonization of youth in the city and layered policing practices that extend police surveillance and control throughout day-to-day life—in schools, youth groups, housing, and health care.

Getting rid of the RCMP was a good start for Surrey. Now they are coming back with a vengeance in a new force. Both need to be defunded and abolished and take their gang panic politics and community policing (that is repression) with them.

RCMP Supt. Jennifer Hyland is Surrey Police Deputy Chief: New Boss Same as Old Again

The new Surrey Police Service is shaping up to look an awful lot like the RCMP force they are supposedly replacing in Surrey. Earlier this year superintendent Jennifer Hyland, officer in charge of Ridge Meadows RCMP, was announced as the first of three deputy chief constables hired to the Surrey Police Service. Hyland’s first day in the position starts on January 25.

This hire comes after the naming of Norm Lipinski to be the first chief of the city's municipal force on November 19, 2020. Lipinski also has RCMP ties, having served as assistant commissioner with the RCMP’s E Division (British Columbia).

In an interview with the Surrey Now-Leader Hyland reports that she will be responsible for support services. In her words:

“Ultimately my bureau is responsible for all things recruiting, all things with respect to the workplace and culture, all things leadership and training, the strategic plan and Canadian engagement, and so basically everything that builds the foundation and the structure of the police force is going to fall under my bureau.”

This is truly troubling given all of the recent documentation of the longstanding toxic culture of bullying, harassment, and sexual violence within the RCMP. It is also deeply disturbing given the recent statements by RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki and Alberta RCMP deputy commissioner Curtis Zablocki claiming that there is no systemic racism in the RCMP.

Of further concern is the fact that superintendent Hyland was the officer in charge of the Ridge Meadows RCMP when their officers shot and killed Kyaw Din in his home on Colemore Street while he was in distress and needed help on August 11, 2019,

The Din family has called murder charges against the officer who shot Kyaw Din. They also called for superintendent Hyland to resign, and demanded police no longer respond to mental health calls.

Superintendent Hyland should still be called to account for the killing of Kyaw Din. She should not be welcomed to Surrey.

The Surrey Police Service is supposed to be grounded in the day-to-day realities of life in Surrey but Hyland lives in Maple Ridge, Lipinski lives in Yale Town, and police board members Elizabeth Model and Harley Chappell live in Burnaby and Chilliwack, respectively.

IIO Investigating RCMP-Involved Collision in Surrey

The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) is investigating a vehicle collision in Surrey involving an RCMP officer who was racing to a call. The IIO reports that on November 4, 2020, at approximately 11:00 PM, an officer in an unmarked police vehicle was involved in a collision with a white Volkswagen Jetta at the intersection of 128 Street and 93 Avenue. Emergency Health Services transported the occupant of the Jetta to a local area hospital with injuries.

Surrey MLA Garry Begg Denies Racism in Canadian Policing

A new government committee has gotten underway to reform the Police Act in British Columbia. It has gotten off to a suspect start. At the committee meeting of January 5, 2021, NDP MLA Garry Begg (Surrey-Guildford) said: "There is this 'Defund the police' thing going on in the States. There are some huge racial issues that I don't think we face here." To be clear, police in Canada have been developed to impose and uphold settler colonialism and racial capitalism.

Begg is, perhaps not surprisingly, a former RCMP officer with 40 years on the force. He has been District Commander, Watch Commander, and Operations Support Officer with the Surrey RCMP. Begg says he got into politics to “tackle crime.” The only surprise there is that a supposedly social democratic party would run a longtime commander in the colonial militia as a candidate. Begg was first elected in 2017 and re-elected in 2020.