SANIRAJAK/HALL BEACH
The top cop in Nunavut does not think having an Inuit officer on-scene earlier this month in Hall Beach would have prevented an RCMP officer from fatally shooting an armed man.
Nunavut RCMP's commanding officer Michael Jeffrey says having more Inuit members would not have prevented three recent police shootings, but is working to make the force more representative of Nunavut's racial makeup. - photo courtesy of Sgt. David Lawson |
RCMP has not released the name of the man shot and killed in Hall Beach on May 1, but other media have identified him as Jeremy Nivviaq, 39. In the half-hour before the shooting, Nivviaq live-streamed on Facebook, saying he hoped to kill himself by having the police shoot him. It was the third fatal police shooting in Nunavut since December.
A 20-year-old man was killed in Pond Inlet in March, while a 21-year old man was shot and killed in Gjoa Haven in December.
RCMP Commanding Officer Michael Jeffrey would not speak about the specifics of those incidents, as they remain under investigation by Ottawa Police. He did confirm that the officer who shot and killed Nivviaq was placed on administrative leave.
Jeffrey said there are 119 RCMP officers in Nunavut. Of those officers only 12, or about 10 per cent, are of Inuit descent, while Inuit make up about 84 per cent of Nunavut's population. Jeffrey added that they are trying to increase the number of Inuit officers.
"I don't think that not having Inuit officers contributed to the three unfortunate incidents that happened. However, will it improve quality of service overall? Absolutely," Jeffrey said. "We are having difficulty recruiting them. We will become more successful with time. It's not that we are not trying, it's just that right now we are not getting the numbers we were hoping to get."
Jeffrey said that incidents where people have stated their desire to die at the hands of police, known as suicide by cop, present unique challenges to his officers. Public safety has to be the number one priority, he said.
"Because there are so many other factors that come into play, there are never two scenarios that happen the same way," Jeffrey said. "About seven per cent of our calls for service involve an emotionally disturbed person who may have expressed a desire to harm themselves. Only a very small portion, there shouldn't be any at all, ever result in a member-involved shooting that turns into a fatality."
Jeffrey added that Nunavut RCMP get about 20,000 calls for service each year and gun-related complaints come in, on average, every two days. Given those statistics, Jeffrey said member-involved shootings are rare.
Jeffrey said about three-quarters of his officers have received updated online de-escalation training that gives them the tools to try to resolve volatile situations involving people with firearms without having to use lethal force. Jeffrey said that all Nunavut RCMP officers are to have taken the de-escalation training by April 1 of next year.
He would not however comment whether de-escalation techniques were used in the recent police shootings. Jeffrey said that coroner's inquests, mandatory when there is a fatal police shooting in Nunavut, will be an opportunity for the public to hear from witnesses, including police, as to exactly what happened.
Jeffrey said all 25 RCMP detachments in Nunavut have at least two Tasers in the detachment to provide a means of non-lethal force. He added that they also have batons and pepper spray, but their use depends on the situation and that every situation is different.
Yvonne Niego, Nunavut's assistant deputy Justice minister and a former RCMP officer, agrees with Jeffrey that the territory needs more Inuit Mounties. She said the RCMP have struggled to recruit Inuit officers because the job description has shifted away from crime prevention to enforcing the law.
"Our communities have much more complex issues ... suicide is a crisis, addictions and mental health issues have resulted in the policing role becoming much more high-level policing. They are much more operational today than they used to be," Niego said. "It's very hard to recruit Inuit into that role when we come from communities in crisis. It takes a very particular person to rise above those crises."
Niego added that the Department of Justice wants to build a crime prevention program in communities, employing the softer side of policing, she called it. Niego thinks that might be a way to recruit more Inuit police officers.
