MONTREAL – If you consider Marc Parent’s philosophy toward policing, the setting was appropriate.
One year after being named chief of the Montreal police, Parent decided to mark the anniversary with a series of interviews he gave on Tuesday stripped of any of the symbols normally associated with his title. Seated in a small swivel chair, with no desk in front of him, Parent conducted the interviews at Sun Youth’s headquarters on St. Urbain St. next to large bins of donated clothing the organization receives from the public. It was a publicrelations move, but one intended to convey the same message he intends to get through to the people below him about the importance of being present in the community.
“(Sun Youth) is one of the partners we work with a lot. In my vision of things I talk about being in the community, working with partners,” Parent said.
“All the family here (at Sun Youth), I know them and I have spent a lot of time with them.
“I am very present in the community. Maybe I’m not very present in the media, but I am at several events with the public, with the community.”
“The vision I want to give to my organization is one where they are proud and invest in their community and are recognized as people who invest in their community.”
Parent was sworn in as the city’s top cop on Sept. 13, 2010, and since then he has made notable changes, including streamlining the administrative structure by converting three separate units that reported to the chief into one.
“That allowed us to return 50 police officers to the field. We cut into the fat where we cut positions considered as bosses and put them out in the field. And why? To offer a better service to the public,” he said, adding information gets to the top much quicker now. “It offers better fine tuning in terms of knowing what is happening. We now have the philosophy of being very close to operations. I am often in the field, talking to police officers. For me it is important to have a proximity to what is happening in the field. My managers know it. Expertise from the field is important.”
Shortly after he was sworn in as chief, Parent also pledged to make changes to the Eclipse Squad, a productive unit that investigates street gang activity, but was criticized for using tactics some considered to be racial profiling. Parent said Tuesday changes have been made to focus the squad’s attention on hard-core criminals. For example, the squad’s members used to have a presence in parks or other public places when street gang activity typically increased during summer months. This part of the squad’s activities was criticized, particularly in northern Montreal, where community leaders said Eclipse contributed to a tense atmosphere. “Instead of doing things like going into a park and investigating a young kid, they are closer to investigations now. They are a part of it from the beginning to the end. It has changed the perception a lot,” Parent said, adding complaints involving allegations of racial profiling appear to be dropping. He said there have been 14 such complaints filed to Quebec’s Police Ethics Committee this year. Last year, there were 33, Parent said, while adding not all complaints of racial profiling involve the Eclipse Squad.
“For me the question of transparency is very important. A group like Eclipse has good expertise and it is important that the public has confidence in Eclipse.”
A smile crosses Parent’s face as he recalls that a few months ago, rumours somehow circulated among street gangs that the changes Parent called for meant Eclipse’s investigators would no longer investigate drug trafficking in bars.
“They thought: ‘They’re not allowed in bars anymore. This is good. Excellent.’ So one day, we went into a club and they said: ‘What are you doing here?’ as we arrested some for drug trafficking. We have to keep going into licensed establishments. It is (the Eclipse squad’s) mandate to do it.”
As for the future of his mandate, Parent said he intends to continue focusing on having his officers visible in the communities they work in through programs in schools and sporting activities like boxing and soccer. He also described road safety as a high priority.
“We will also continue to work on the emerging types of criminality, fraud, cybercrimes, white-collar crime, identity theft,” he said. “Those are the things the things we will continue to observe in the future in terms of an organizational priority.”
Comments