Violent crime is on the rise in York Region with police encountering more people armed with firearms and weapons, according a York Regional Police report.
Officers had 149 encounters with suspects who had firearms in 2023, compared to 53 in 2022, an increase of 181.7 per cent, according to a use of force report presented to police services board March 27.
“Our most dramatic increase and concerning for members of the public, as well as our police agency, is in relation to subjects that were armed with firearms,” said Staff Sgt. Josh McCue.
“Based upon these findings, York Regional Police has made changes to our training to address the presence of firearms by subjects encountered by our officers. We continue to provide our members with the best training we can in relation to responding to these types of calls.”
Police focus on scenario-based training, officer safety considerations, as well as incident command principles.
Police had 215 encounters with subjects holding a weapon in 2023, compared to 117 encounters in 2022, an increase of 83.76 per cent.
“Subjects were armed with weapons such as firearms, knives, other blunt force objects used as weapons, as well as vehicles used as a weapon,” said McCue.
Board member Walter Perchal was concerned about the alarming trend of armed and dangerous suspects.
“The fact is these statistics are going to increase, not decrease,” said Perchal. “The number of weapons coming into the environment, as everyone knows, is increasing again and the capacity to interdict weapons is, unfortunately, not where it needs to be, for a multiplicity of reasons not attributed to YRP, but to larger issues of federal government control.”
Perchal was encouraged to see police equipping themselves with body armour as violent crime increased.
“In this increasingly hostile environment, the worst statistic of all is the lives of officers at risk due to inadequate protection and it is unconscionable for anybody involved in this process not to provide an increased level of protection because of the probable increase of incidents.”
YRP has a commitment to adjust and change based on the statistics in the report, he added.
“The fact is there is growing incivility in society and there’s a growing threat, and that requires a constant adjustment that regrettably is something that falls on the institution itself that is YRP as opposed to the larger process,” said Perchal.
