“There’s no doubt we made mistakes,” says the new head of the OPS
As the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) apologizes for the mistakes it made during the convoy occupation last winter, people who were there are thinking about how their trust in the government has been damaged.
“I used to believe in the police.” “Now, I’m not sure,” Martynn Crooy, who lives in Ottawa, said this after Commissioner Paul Rouleau’s report on the decision to use the Emergencies Act to stop the convoy protests came out on Friday.
“I have faith in some police officers.” “As a whole, it makes you wonder a lot.”
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The federal government met the requirements to use the Emergency Act. Rouleau
Philip Hannan, another resident, said, “The police work was pretty bad.” “They did disappoint us.”
Rouleau’s report blamed Ottawa police for not properly evaluating the information they had gathered. This brought up old feelings.
Rouleau said that both made the subsequent occupation possible and made it worse. The occupation took over parts of downtown Ottawa for several weeks.
‘We do apologize
“There’s no doubt that we made mistakes,” OPS Chief Eric Stubbs said in an interview on Monday. “And it had a big effect on a lot of people in Ottawa and a lot of businesses, and we’re sorry about that.”
Stubbs started his job in November. He took over from Peter Sloly, who quit in the middle of the weeks-long protests.
He said the force has learned from its mistakes and improved how it shares information with city hall, the Ottawa Police Services Board, and other organizations.
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The Emergencies Act report shows that Ottawa police didn’t do a good job gathering information.
Rouleau’s report also put some of the blame on the police board, saying that it could have done more to get details about the OPS’s operational plan and didn’t bring up some problems it heard.
On Friday, Diane Deans, who used to be chair of the board, said that most of the information between the board and the service comes from the chief.
She said, “And the police chief was asked over and over again about that.” “And you’ll remember that he said in public that he would be very surprised if the protesters were still here on Monday.”
“I mean, if we had known then what we know now, could we have looked into it more?” I think we could have probably said, “She went on.”
Deans was removed from his position as chair.infamous council meetingOn February 16, 2022, word got out that after Sloly left, the board quickly hired an interim police chief without holding a competition or telling the council.
“Listen to what the report says,” a former councillor says
Catherine McKenney, who used to be a council member for the Somerset ward, said that this kind of event might never happen again but that Rouleau’s suggestions should be taken seriously and similar threats should be dealt with more quickly.
“Looking back, there was no doubt in our minds that this convoy was coming,” McKenney said. “When I say “our,” I mean myself and other residents who saw what was going on through social media.
“I don’t think it took a lot of smarts.” “We could see what was going on.”
Sloly’s choices and decisions as a leader were also criticized in the report, but Rouleau said that making Sloly the scapegoat would be too easy.
Stubbs said that the group is now going over Rouleau’s suggestions.
“Every day, every police officer in Ottawa works hard to keep this community safe,” Stubbs said as he read a prepared statement. “We know that trust in the police has dropped over the past year, and we are fully committed to bringing that trust back.”