Dale McFee, Edmonton’s police chief, said 2020 might be the most challenging year for law enforcement that he has ever experienced.
“Already we’re in the middle of a downturn in the economy, you get hit by COVID, you get hit with George Floyd,” said McFee. “What’s happening south of the border and now you got the masks and you got people pushing their will or rights on others.”
Liquor theft went up in 2020, partially fueled by the ongoing pandemic, according to McFee. Alcohol was being turned into street currency while liquor store employees were being left “traumatized, victimized... terrorized.”
There have been pilot projects testing new and successful theft prevention measures in the city in an attempt th change that trend.
McFee said that amid the troubles of the year, one of his top priorities remains continuing the work to better serve black, Indigenous and people of colour in Edmonton.
“There’s some things we need to do differently, and we‘ve embraced that… we are not perfect, we certainly need to change some of the things that we do.”
“There’s a lot of good men and women who work in this organization… by far, far the majority and I’m pretty proud to be the chief of this organization.”
Calls for police organizations across the country to be defunded became a rallying cry for mass protests in the spring. City council eventually approved an $11-million budget cut for EPS.
In 2019, EPS formally apologized to the LGBTQ2S+ community for decades of discrimination. Earlier this year, EPS created a position dedicated to liaising between the force and the local queer community. A police member-driven committee has also been formed to continue working towards better relationships between the groups.
An issue McFee didn’t plan on was the ongoing fight against wearing face masks. There have been threats and assaults related to mask bylaws throughout the pandemic.
“To get a criminal record out of this, what are people thinking? That’s disappointing to me not only as a police chief, but as a citizen of Edmonton.”
Edmonton also saw an uptick in gun violence this year, McFee promised results on more than 150 shootings will be coming in the near future.
“There’s a lot more arrests to come in the not too distant future and this is stuff we will always be relentless on because this stuff is unacceptable.”
Police saw criticism over the roughly half-million-dollar Cambli Black Wolf armoured vehicle that replaced the service's 42-year-old “Grizzly.” McFee said the new vehicle has been deployed more often than he thought it would be this year.
“We have used it in some gang incidents and we have used it to extradite an individual who was hurt.”
McFee’s last message to Edmontonians as the curtain falls on 2020 is that the city will get through the pandemic by working together.
