The Hamilton Police Association is raising an alarm about staffing levels.
The association’s president, Clint Twolan, has written a letter to the city’s police services board, noting that officers from three specialized units were temporarily pulled off that duty to cover front-line vacancies over the summer.
Twolan says the staffing “crisis” is making the service reactionary instead of proactive.
He warns that it opens the door to more guns, drugs and violence and insists that “we’re one call away from having an incident where we’re just not able to respond effectively.”
Twolan insists the association is sensitive to budgetary concerns but wants to educate the public about “the service they’re going to get, based on the staffing numbers.”
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He also warns that burnout is becoming a factor within the ranks with officers saying “I’ve just seen too much and I’ve done too much over the past period of time.”
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The board has said the decision to temporarily shift officers from the BEAR (break, enter, auto theft and robbery), vice and drugs, and HEAT (High Enforcement Action Team) units into patrol was made to cover vacation, sick days and parental leave.
Hamilton police staffing levels are likely to be raised when the service’s 2019 budget is presented to the police services board this winter.
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