Police to employ less lethal weaponry in high-risk incidents

Non-lethal weapons at disposal of CPS officers CPS is increasing availability of non-lethal weapons in effort to decrease undesirable outcomes of high-risk calls. Brenna Rose reports.

Calgary police are set to unveil a new piece of ordinance intended to help safely resolve dangerous situations between front line officers and suspects.

The Patrol Less Lethal program is adopting the single-shot 37mm ARWEN ACE-T Less Lethal Launcher, a British designed riot control weapon that fires a plastic round.

When fired, it delivers a high impact, non-lethal strike to a suspect without the risk of a close quarters encounter.

Officials say a shot from the ARWEN is equivalent to one and a half times the impact of a 160 km/h (100 miles per hour)fastball.

Police say that through the use of such less lethal systems, patrol officers can have ability to de-escalate a situation while maintaining a safe distance.

“This program is being implemented to help save lives,” said Staff Sergeant Jason Bobrowich, lead of the Patrol Less Lethal program. ““Public and officer safety along with the sanctity of life remain the Service’s top priority.”

He says that the force is ensuring that all officers who are equipped with the launchers are instructed how to use them properly.

"We have developed a very stringent and a very robust training program that is based off of our new policies implemented regarding less lethal weapon systems to ensure that not only are our officers trained but our incident commanders, our partners with 911, our partners with AHS, we look the full spectrum so that all of the people involved with these systems know how to use them safely and accurately."

Bobrowich says other than Tasers, there are few other options the CPS has when it comes to less lethal ordinance and the ARWEN system addresses that gap, but it doesn't mean that police will never draw their service weapons.

"It does not replace the use of our firearm and it does not replace the use of our Tactical Unit. Both have extreme benefits to have in the Calgary Police Service but we definitely want to create time which creates distance and provides us other options on the front line in order to deal with persons in crisis."

He adds that it won't replace the Taser either.

"This is a use-of-force option that follows through the less lethal continuum and provides officers that extended range. We can basically quadruple the effective range of the Taser at this point."

The launchers have been researched and tested for some time and CPS even deployed one of the rifles during a high-risk situation in Penbrooke earlier this year.

In that incident, an ARWEN ACE-T launcher was used to incapacitate a 17-year-old suspect. Another suspect, a 33-year-old woman, was unfortunately shot dead by another Calgary police officer.

The systems will be rolled out this summer, beginning with 40 trained officers and 40 launchers.

The Less Lethal Program predates a formal review of the CPS' use of force in critical situations, undertaken by retired Justice Neil Wittmann.

"This project was initiated, on its own, by front line members prior to Use of Force Review being actioned or being requested," said Brobrowich. "We provided a great of input as to our intent with his project and it definitely aligned with the recommendations that were made in there."

Wittmann delivered the report late last month and one of the main points was that that the CPS should have more less lethal weapons at their disposal.

By the end of 2019, 160 officers will be trained to use the 80 systems available city-wide.

In 2017, three people were shot by Calgary police during incident while in 2016, 10 people were shot and five of those suspects died.

The main goal of May's review was to work towards having zero fatalities in future critical incidents.