Regina police chief on Sanderson manhunt, overdoses and new police plane

Regina Police Chief Evan Bray recently sat down with CBC provincial affairs reporter Adam Hunter for a year-end interview.

Bray reflected on how a provincewide manhunt centred in Regina for one day, crime trends and how COVID has impacted drug use. He also gave his thoughts on the provincial government's planned marshals service and the federal government's gun buyback plan.

This interview was conducted on Dec. 21. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What stands out to you from 2022?

A: COVID was still very present. At the beginning of 2022, convoys were very present. We had multiple stops in our city with large volumes of trucks. We had a couple of what I would call longer protests that happened, but the ability to work through those was super important.

Events started happening again. We had the Frost Festival, Exhibition, Agribitionand the Grey Cup, which was very successful. We had thousands of people in town. We did not make one arrest.

Q: Let's start with the weekend of the James Smith tragedy. Do we have any more information about whether Myles Sanderson was in Regina that weekend?

A: I think there is some information known now about his whereabouts throughout a few days, between when the incidents happened and when he was ultimately arrested. However, it's an RCMP investigation. As the inquest happens and more information comes out, I think we'll have a better idea then of what his timeline looked like.

We operated under the impression that he was in the city. We had very reliable information that he was. As we know, he was not located in the city, so if he was here it was for a short period.

There had been no further violence. A lot of tragic things happened in the northern part of our province, but it didn't continue in our community.We had what I would call one very valid, credible sighting and after that, there were no more.

Q: What can you tell us about the overdose situation in Regina?

A: We are still seeing fentanyl as the driving factor behind the tragic health consequences of overdoses in our community. Drugs have taken on a different look over the last couple of years.

Methamphetamines were very much the prevalent drug [in previous years]. It became tough to get. Once COVID hit, the supply chain was limited and fentanyl was much easier to get.

The consequences tend to be less focused on crime and more focused on health. The consequences of overdosing on fentanyl are often a loss of life or serious health issues.

We saw the need to try to take the justice focus off of those that suffer from a substance use disorder. Putting handcuffs on a person with an addiction is not going to help them.

The Ministry of Health has been doing a lot of work on trying to bolster the number of beds available in communities.

We as police will work on limiting the large quantities of illegal drugs coming into our community. But as long as you still have a base of people that are suffering from an addiction, you're always going to have a new drug coming in and taking its place. You have to dig into the root causes of it.

Q: You have a mental health worker going out with an officer.What's the evolution of that Police and Crisis Team (PACT) program?

A:Having a police officer working with someone from SHA who is trained as a mental health professional has been successful in a lot of ways.

It's very successful in de-escalating situations. Having the ability to have the officer there from a safety standpoint, but [also]a trained professional to help someone who's in a mental crisis.

Our program is running [PACT] every day, but not 24 hours a day. We're happy to put another police officer or two in there, but we would need the province to put another couple of mental health professionals in there and then really dig into this in a 24/7 meaningful way. Our hope is that in 2023 we'll be able to make those strides.

Q: The police service plane is operational. Why did you think that was something that we need?

A: The air support unit is a positive step forward in community safety. We've already seen some success from having it in the air. It gives us that aerial view of situations that unfold that provide either risk to citizens or to the community as a whole.

If you have a person who might be vulnerable and goes missing, it has the ability to do searches for people. Not everyone is going to be found by the plane, but we know that there's urgency, especially when the weather is cold or conditions aren't favorable.

Not everyone obeys police orders to stop. We activate emergency lights, the vehicle doesn't pull over and it takes off and evades police.We had a recent example where the suspects were able to be watcheddrive to a location, get out of the vehicle, go into a house, and our officers are then able to take that person safely into custody.

It not only saves investigative time on the back end for our officers, which is a cost-saving, but also minimizes future risk because we're able to hold that offender accountable more quickly.

WATCH | Regina Police Chief Evan Bray looks back on 2022:

Regina Police Service take to the air and look back at 2022

2 years ago

Duration 2:38

The Regina Police Service has a new tool in its arsenal: a plane. Chief Evan Bray talked about that and what else the police focused on this year when he sat down with the CBC's Adam Hunter.

Q: The provincial government is creating a marshals service. What's your reaction to that and do you have any concerns?

A: At this point like many I'm not sure what that's going to look like. I know they're talking about this is going to be operational in 2026. I know that a lot of the intent behind it is about rural Saskatchewan and safety and more remote communities.

I think we have lots of good working relationships with the province and with the Ministry of Corrections and Policing. I'm hoping we're going to get more collaboration on this and find ways that this can enhance safety in our community as well. It's an investment in safety in the province, but it's left a lot of us just wondering exactly how that lines up.

Q: The provincial government has said that they don't want the RCMP involved in the federal government's gun buyback. What would be the Regina police's role in that?

A:I'm fairly involved in this from a few different aspects, not just as the chief here. I also sit as an executive member of the Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police. I also lead a national committee for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police on firearms.

I can tell you that it is our hope as a Regina Police Service that we won't have to be involved in the buyback administrative portion of this new legislation once the amnesty is over.

When the amnesty period is over and it becomes law, absolutelythat's our job. We enforce the laws that are made and we will enforce the law. Very seldom are we used in what I would call more of an administrative process of going out and gathering the guns.

I think there is a bit of a push from the federal government to have police officers involved as one option in this buyback program. We also know our provincial government is very disinterested in being involved in this program and having the police involved. It's not uncommon for police to find themselves pinched in a political battle and I believe that's what's happening here.I hope that we are going to see some further discussion and a resolution.

Q: When you look at the crime statistics, what are you encouraged by and what needs more focus?

A: Increases have been in property crime, and I think the property crime increase is directly related to emerging from COVID. People are going back to work.We've had large gatherings. So all of those things create opportunities for property crime, theft from cars, theft of carsand things like mischief.

On the positive side, we're seeing decreases in crimes against the person. Our homicide rate is nearly half of what it was compared to 2021. Serious assaultsand robberies are trending down.

Through COVID we saw a spike in non-criminal social issues, missing persons, overdoses and domestic disputes. We have 20 domestic disputes a day, and 13 of them are not criminal, some sort of a breakdown of a family structure. We were at 16 or 17 pre-COVID.

Missing persons, overdoses they're all slightly coming down again. I think those are indications that we're going in the right direction. It's my hope that we're going to see that trend continue into 2023.