Stratford Police Services to examine active shooter protocols: Chief

Stratford police officials are continuing to look at a number of their protocols in the wake of the August mass shooting that left two people dead and two injured, Chief Greg Skinner said this week.

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Skinner was part of a community gathering Thursday that involved several community organizations, including Victim Services Huron Perth and the Canadian Mental Health Association.

The evening was organized to provide supports to people in the community impacted by the deadly Aug. 1 shooting on Bradshaw Drive. A neighbor dispute turned violent, Ricky Bilcke fatally shot Jonathan Bennett and wounded two others – Stephanie Irvine and David Tokley – before turning the gun on himself.

Among the police protocols are examining is their response to active shooter situations, which are often chaotic and can involve many 911 calls coming in, Skinner said.

“The calls indicated that there were different firearms that were being (used) and, as a result, our officers didn’t know whether this was one shooter or multiple shooters, so they had to guide themselves accordingly – as if there was multiple shooters as they approached,” the chief said.

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Police are also rethinking how they train for shooter situation since most of their drills now involve indoor scenarios, such as schools, apartment buildings or commercial complexes, Skinner said.

“Very rarely are we thinking about approaching an active shooter who’s out in a public space or out on the street, so that takes a different type of training. We’re going to have to look at our protocols with respect to that, and change our training tactics with respect to a first approach to those types of scenarios,” he said.

Given that police had responded to complaints on the street approximately 11 times since last year, police are also looking at how they respond to these kind of disputes, Skinner said. One option, he added, could be having trained mediators instead of police officers involved in these interactions.

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“Sometimes we don’t do the best job of de-escalating situations. We make our best efforts, but trained mediators – a third party – may be able to get to the root cause of issues and come to some other resolution,” Skinner said.

While police are now being hyper-sensitive when dealing with neighbor disputes, Skinner noted it is difficult to gauge what someone might do after officers leave.

“Very rarely, if ever, does somebody say, ‘I’m going to do this violent act.’ Usually, when we police officers show up at the scene, they’re most often on their best behavior. They’re saying all the right things,” he said.

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Most of the changes being considered would happen internally, with notice being given to the local police services board regarding their nature and rationale. The local department would also have to re-write any policy changes to be in line with Ontario’s Community Safety and Policing Act.

“While we don’t like to burden things with a lot of red tape, we do want to make sure that it is within our legislative requirements and that it meets the test that we have to have it in place,” Skinner explained.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Coroner has previously stated the Stratford shooting does not meet the criteria for a mandatory inquestalthough one may still be conducted. However, Skinner said he would not want to speak on behalf of the coroner.

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“I think there are a number of contributing factors to this particular incident that may cause a coroner to get the who, what, why, where, when and how, and how can we prevent this from happening in the future,” he said.

The impact of that night’s violence has reverberated throughout the city, with people across the city expressing concerns about their safety, Skinner said.

“We’ve had to deploy people to deal with their concerns and to try to regain their trust in the community and bring back their level of safety and security,” the chief added.

Skinner was “shocked” when he found out the details of what happened.

“Stratford hasn’t had that kind of violence in the recent past. You look at big cities and the news coverage, and you hear about it all the time. We’ve heard about it in Woodstock and St. Thomas, but we, luckily, have been a little bit immune from that level of violence, and now all of a sudden, it is in our community as well,” he said.

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