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.