Recommendation 4

Chiefs should ensure that procedures include a debriefing within the police service following a public order incident

 

Chiefs should review procedures to ensure they include a debriefing of public order incidents within the police service following the deployment of a POU (regardless of whether they utilized their own POU, or a POU from another police service accessed through an agreement), as now required under section 8 of Ontario Regulation 392/23: Adequate and Effective Policing (General) of the CSPA. 

 

The debriefing process should include, at a minimum, a summary of information regarding the incident, including:

 

  1. the nature of the incident;
  2. the date, time, and location of the incident;
  3. the environment in which the incident occurred; and,
  4. the details on the response to the incident by the POU. The debriefing should also include an analysis of the outcome of the incident, including what operationally worked well, as well as recommendations for improvement, as well as matters to be addressed through changes to procedure and training.

 

While the term “following the deployment” suggests that the debriefings occur soon after a POU deployment is possible, there may be instances where there is reason to believe that a public order incident may give rise to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) invoking its mandate. In those instances, the police service should liaise with the SIU to determine whether a debriefing could complicate their investigation into the incident and should therefore be delayed. 

 

Note, the debrief mentioned above refers to an internal process within the police service. These are distinct from after incident reporting requirements found under Ontario Regulation 393/23 Active Attacker Incidents and the Extreme Incident Response Plan, referenced under Ontario Regulation 392/23 Adequate and Effective Policing (General).

 

Furthermore, through the Ontario Public Order Hub, the sector is encouraged to facilitate the sharing of in-service debriefs so that different POUs can learn from tactical examples applied, with a focus on assessing future needs and enhancing interoperability in joint service public order deployments. This information should also be shared with the Ontario Police College to assist in the continuous improvement of its POU training curriculum. This will improve future practices and operations in POU tactical decision-making across the province. 

 

 

 

iii) Circumstances for Deployment

There were three police services whose Chief’s procedures were found non-compliant with the requirement to identify circumstances in which a POU may be deployed. The three police services did not have their own POU and all of them relied on a PSA section 7 of the agreement. 

 

Again, regardless of whether the police service has its own POU or relies on an agreement with another board to provide POU services, subsection 19(1) of Ontario Regulation 3/99: Adequate and Effectiveness of Police Services under the PSA required every Chief to, “…establish procedures on public order unit services which set out the circumstances in which a public order unit may be deployed.” The inspection did find that police services that maintained their own POUs were all compliant with this requirement. 

 

Of note, this requirement is further expanded under the CSPA Ontario Regulation 392/23 to now require that the Chief establish procedures respecting the deployment of a POU for both planned and unplanned incidents, including setting out the circumstances for deployment, specifying the process for authorizing deployment, and identifying operational responsibility for authorizing deployment. The IoP encourages these procedures to also include a consistent assessment tool used by police services in evaluating the risk level and an appropriate level of response, including whether to request temporary public order assistance from another service.