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.

Surrey RCMP Accused of Beating Woman in Distress

 A recent Facebook post (December 2, 2020) describes an assault by Surrey RCMP on a young woman experiencing mental distress. The post begins:

“Don't get the Surrey RCMP to do a wellness check on your friends if you can't get to them right away. They'll come by just to beat the ever living shit out of you.”

 

Written by a friend of the victim who, along with another friend had called 911 seeking a wellness check when it became apparent their friend was in crisis, the post outlines the violence that police delivered instead of the assistance sought. It describes a harrowing ordeal:

 

“Depressed and suicidal? Phone them, so on top of all your existing problems you can have badged goons break into your home and break your face for free, take you away and drug you up for three days straight like a lab rat and drop you off on the street with amnesia.”

 

They wanted help for their friend, but cops are not about health or wellness. They are about violence and control. In their words:

“We wanted a reply, we just wanted to know our homie was still alive and kicking it. Apparently they do what cops usually do and scared the shit out of her, beat her and dragged her out of her own suite. We didn't hear anything from her for three days man.”

 

The post concludes:

“No support, no help. No justice, no peace.”

 

This is policing. This is the RCMP. We need real social supports, real health care. Not cops, violence, and repression. This is one example of why police in Surrey need to be defunded. Why they need to be abolished.

The RCMP are leaving city policing in Surrey. Good. The new municipal police force needs to follow them out the door.

The original post can be read here:

https://www.facebook.com/shwblr/posts/10216982662630304

 

Meet the New Boss…Comes from the Old: Norm Lipinski Named Surrey Police Chief

The Surrey Police Board is planning to "move on" from the RCMP to a new municipal police force in the city by hiring a former assistant commissioner of that same RCMP. On November 19, 2020, they announced that they have tabbed Norm Lipinski to be the first chief of the city's new municipal police force. Lipinski is currently the deputy chief of the Delta Police Department and before that spent years with the Edmonton Police Service before becoming assistant commissioner with the RCMP’s E Division (British Columbia).

The announcement comes the same day a major report details systemic abuse and the toxic culture of the RCMP. Nice timing.

Under Lipinski’s term in Delta, two Delta Police officers were disciplined following a five-month long investigation into a complaint of workplace and sexual harassment. Sounds familiar.

Speaking of multiple killer RCMP Monty Robinson, then assistant commissioner Lipinski said: "he won’t be fired outright, now that he's a convicted criminal, because he's still entitled to due process as a police officer under the RCMP Act."

Lipinski was embroiled in a controversy when civilian Kiran Sidhu was sprayed with a water hose by Lorraine Dubord, spouse of Delta’s police chief Neil Dubord, outside the couple’s house in June 2020. Lorraine Dubord allegedly hurled insults at Ms. Sidhu. Police decided not to lay charges against Lorraine Dubord and there was some concern about Lipinski’s role in that decision.

Getting rid of the RCMP in Surrey was a good step. No need to bring any of them back. And now the next step is to defund and abolish the new force.

Cops Invade Campus: KPU Traffic Court

 

Connections between cops and campus, between carceral and educational, take many forms. All involve the further diversion of public resources (for non-carceral uses) into policing functions. In the case of cops and campus it means the diversion of already limited educational resources (infrastructure, space, labor, materials, thought) into already over-funded carceral agencies and institutions.

In many cases the forms are familiar—co-op and practicum placements with carceral agencies, cops in classrooms, campus policing arrangements. In others hey take less familiar, stranger, forms. Ones that might give the unsuspecting observer pause.

During the period of COVID19 Kwantlen Polytechnic University has taken the opportunity to up its already substantial commitment to the carceral campus and turning public post-secondary resources, space, and infrastructure into serving policing functions. With reduced activity on campus by faculty, staff, and students, KPU has literally transformed the campus and its building into a penal institution—a courthouse. The university has given over its Cedar Building, site of its conference centers and gym, as a traffic court (not strictly “given” since they are no doubt making money off the deal).

Showing up to campus to be confronted by multiple police vehicles and officers from several forces (RCMP, Delta Police, court services/sheriffs) is not specifically a warm welcome for the community or for current or prospective students. Especially given that KPU students regularly discuss being racially profiled by police, particularly in traffic stops. Does KPU really want students to more closely associate the institution with police power and support for systemic racism?

One might well ask how this relates to the targeting of critical faculty in the Criminology Department at KPU who have faced harassment for academic work that focuses on systemic racism, colonial violence, and class inequality in relation to policing and who speak out in defense of criminalized people against carceral agencies and practices.

Given the historic mobilizations against police power and systemic racism in carceral structures, this is a deeply disturbing development.