If you’re a downtown transit user in Winnipeg, you’ve likely seen some new faces on your commute.
Tuesday, a total of 23 sworn-in peace officers were posted in the Graham corridor and around the downtown area, with the goal of crime prevention. Eventually, the safety team’s lead, Bob Chrismas, said the officers will make their way onto buses.
“For today, we just wanted to get out and be seen,” he said. Even so, he said in the first 10 minutes of the officers’ shift, they already handled a dozen incidents.
“There was one person in a crisis under the influence of meth,” he said. Sean Berman, one of two community safety officer supervisors, said most of the team’s responses have been wellbeing checks.
Chris Scott, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, says his members are cautiously optimistic about the new program, which starts downtown with plans to expand to other areas of Winnipeg in future.
“Understandably, there’s a social aspect to this new team, and that will be the first step in what they do … and we hope to see some sort of enforcement as time goes on,” Scott told 680 CJOB’s The Start.
“They will have the authority to detain and arrest. They are currently equipped with a retractable baton should a more aggressive stance be needed, but their first goal would obviously be to get the individual off the bus and deal with their issue off the bus.”
The officers are also intended to work with social agencies and emergency services to support Winnipeggers dealing with homelessness, addictions, and mental health issues by providing support at on site and by linking people with resources they need.
The new officers will be highly visible in yellow and black uniforms clearly marked with “safety officer.”
“A big part of the strategy we envisioned is giving a sense of safety, and dealing with incidents as they arise right in front of us,” Chrismas said.
Scott said while most transit users are just trying to get from point A to point B in peace, Transit is seeing the majority of incidents starting with passengers who chose not to pay their bus fare — a problem that costs millions in lost revenue, as well as potential violence.
“The policy for operators is to not engage anybody that’s evading a fare. … But that being said, it is the fare evader that is causing about 90 per cent of the altercations on the bus.”
Chrismas said “we really want to avoid being viewed as fare police. But, not paying fares is part of the unruly passenger problem that we plan to be dealing with. So it will certainly be a consideration.”
Winnipeg mayor Scott Gillingham said a lot of work has gone into setting up this program, and the presence of the officers should help give riders and operators peace of mind.
“We were able to get the program up and running, these individuals hired trained and on buses, and it’s really a credit to everyone involved — our public service, the province of Manitoba with their legislation… it took a whole team of people to get this up and running within a year.”
“I think the presence of these individuals will assist with, I think certainly confidence for transit riders — feeling more confident on the bus,” Gillingham told 680 CJOB.
“And our transit operators, that’s their workplace, and they’ll feel more comfortable as well with these individuals there.”
Gillingham said the officers will work in pairs.
To evaluate the program’s success, Chrismas said there will be focus groups and surveys constructed to benchmark how Winnipegger’s are feeling. That benchmark would be re-visited after a year, he said.