The Winnipeg Police Service is set to benefit from assets seized in the course of criminal investigations.
Manitoba’s justice minister announced Tuesday that more than $1 million from the Criminal Property Forfeiture Fund will be used for police training and technology, including trauma-informed training for 200 officers.
A total of $76,000 is being used for the trauma training, which police have described as a two-day intensive program focused on ‘recognizing the impact of stressors in policing and developing tools to manage the impact’.
Almost $300,000 of the funding is earmarked for new video technology tools, allowing police to quickly review hours of surveillance video and focus on people and events of interest.
“Because we live in a digital world, there are very few investigations where our officers do not gather some form of video evidence,” said Staff Sgt. Josh Ewatski.
“Some cases have involved thousands of hours of video, making it extremely time-consuming to process and examine.
“The criminal property forfeiture funding for this new tool will allow our investigators to reduce terabytes of video recordings into manageable durations for timely review saving thousands of hours of investigator time, freeing them up to identify suspects and bring files to a close.”