Vancouver Police Department
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The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is the police force for the City of Vancouver. It is one of several police departments covering the Greater Vancouver Area.
[edit] History
At the first meeting of Vancouver City Council, Vancouver's first police officer, Chief Constable John Stewart, was appointed on May 10, 1886.
On June 14, 1886, the morning after the Great Fire of 1886, Mayor McLean appointed Jackson Abray, V.W. Haywood, and John McLaren as special constables. With uniforms from Seattle and badges fashioned from American coins, this four man team became Vancouver's first police department based out of the City Hall tent at the foot of Carrall Street. These four were replaced in 1887 by special constables sent by the provincial government in Victoria for not keeping the peace during the anti-Asian unrest of that year. The strength of the force increased from four to fourteen as a result.
By 1904, the department had grown to 31 members and occupied a new police building at 200 Cordova Street. In 1912, Vancouver's first two women were taken on the force as matrons. With the amalgamation of Point Grey and South Vancouver with Vancouver in 1929, the department absorbed the two smaller police forces under the direction of Chief Constable W.J. Bingham, a former District Supervisor with the Metropolitan Police in London. By the 1940s the department had grown to 570 members.
In 1917, Chief Constable McLennan, was killed in the line of duty in a shoot-out in Vancouver's East End. Responding to a call by a landlord attempting to evict a tenant, the police were met by gunfire. Along with McLennan, the shooter was killed in the battle, as was a nine year-old boy in the vicinity at Georgia and Jackson streets, which is now marked by a mosaic memorial.
Another member of the force was killed in the line of duty in 1922. Twenty-three year old Constable Robert McBeath was shot by a man stopped for impaired driving. McBeath received the Victoria Cross for "most conspicuous bravery" at the Battle of Cambrai in France in the First World War. McBeath's killer, Fred Deal, was initially sentenced to death, but won an appeal reducing it to life in prison because he had been beaten while in custody. The Marine Squad's boat, the R.G. McBeath VC, was commissioned in 1995 and named in honour of McBeath.
Plans for a new police building at 312 Main Street began in 1953. The Oakridge police station opened in 1961.
In 1935 under Chief Constable W. W. Foster, the Vancouver Police Department was complemented with hundreds of special constables because of a waterfront strike led by communists, which culminated in the Battle of Ballantyne Pier, a riot that broke out when demonstrators attempted to march to the docks to confront strikebreakers. Also that year, nearly 2,000 unemployed men from the federal relief camps scattered throughout the province flocked to Vancouver to protest camp conditions. After two months of incessant demonstrations, the camp strikers left Vancouver and began the On-to-Ottawa Trek.
The Vancouver Police was at the centre of one of the biggest scandals in the city's history in 1955. Feeling frustrated that blatant police corruption was being ignored by the local media, a reporter for the Vancouver Daily Province switched to a Toronto-based tabloid, Flash. He wrote a sensational article alleging corruption at the highest levels of the police department in Vancouver, specifically, that a pay-off system had been implemented whereby gambling operations that paid the police were left alone and those that did not were harassed. After the Flash article appeared in Vancouver, the allegations could no longer be ignored, and a Royal Commission, the Tupper Commission, was struck to hold a public inquiry. Chief Constable Walter Mulligan fled to the United States, another officer from the upper ranks committed suicide, and still another attempted suicide rather than face the inquiry.[1] Other scandals and public inquiries plagued the force before and since this one, dubbed "The Mulligan Affair," but none were so dramatic. An earlier inquiry into corruption in 1928 was ambiguous in its conclusions as to the extent of the problem. The last major inquiry into policing in Vancouver focused largely on police accountability. Judge Wally Oppal (later provincial Attorney General), submitted the results of his report in 1994 in a four volume package entitled Closing the Gap: Policing and the Community.
[edit] Organization
VPD has been headed by Chief Constable Jamie Graham since 2002 when he beat out Larry Campbell. Both men are former Mounties, and Campbell went on to the city's mayor (and Graham's boss). Graham's contract expires in 2007, and he has announced that he will not seek a second term. Chief Constable Graham is supported by three senior officers:
- Inspector Tony Zanatta - Director of Diversity Relations Unit and Chief Executive Officer
- Paul Patterson - Director of Public Affairs and Marketing Unit and civilian member
- Inspector Rollie Woods - Director of Internal Investigation Unit
[edit] Divisions
The force has four operating divisions:
[edit] Operations
Led by Deputy Chief Constable Bob Rich
- all patrols
- community policing
- Marine Squad
- Mounted Squad
- Traffic Services
[edit] Operations Support
Led by Deputy Chief Constable Jim Chu
- Criminal Intelligence Section
- Emergency Response Section
- Emergency and Operations Planning
- Youth Services Section
[edit] Investigation Services
Led by Deputy Chief Constable Doug LePard
- Major Crimes Section
- Special Investigations Section
- Services Liaison Section
- Forensics Services Section
[edit] Support Services
Led by Deputy Chief Constable Bob Rolls
- Communications Section
- Human Resources Section
- Financial Services Section
- Information Management Section
- Information Technology Section
- Planning, Research and Audit Section
- Training and Recruiting Section
[edit] Geography
The VPD is divided into 4 geographic districts:
- District 1 - Granville and West End with 3 policing centres
- District 2 - Chinatown, Grandview-Woodland and Hastings-Sunrise with 3 policing centres
- District 3 - Collingwood and South Vancouver with 2 policing centres
- District 4 - Kerrisdale, Oakridge and Marpole with 1 policing centre
In 2001, the VPD had approximately 1,387 staff.
[edit] References
- ^ Macdonald, Ian; Betty O'Keefe (1997). The Mulligan Affair: Top Cop on the Take. Vancouver: Heritage House. ISBN 1-895811-45-7.
- "Vancouver Police Department - Our History"
- Joe Swan, A Century of Service: The Vancouver Police 1886-1986. Vancouver: Vancouver Police Historical Society and Centennial Museum, 1986.
