Use of force, traffic safety at Calgary Police Commission meeting

The Calgary Police Commission will discuss use of force and traffic safety at its monthly meeting Wednesday

First on the agenda is a new road safety plan, a partnership between police and the City of Calgary.

The safety plan aims to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries by 25 percent by 2028.

The plan describes how participation, equity, engineering, education, enforcement and evaluation will help work on safer roads.

On the agenda is an annual report on de-escalation and the use of force.

In 2023, the volume of interactions between officers and the public reached the highest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report said.

He found that the volume and severity of violent crime, as well as the frequency of serious calls involving guns and drugs, were increasing.

The report reported a 41 percent increase in the use of energy weapons, and a 50 percent increase in the use of dynamic destruction.

It also found that the number of incidents involving police shooting was 54 percent higher than average.

This means that an officer in the city has to point his gun once every two weeks.

While violent incidents have increased over the past two years, they are still below 2019 levels.

Also on the agenda are updates on several crime trends and a police plan for the Dashmesh Cultural Center march, where two people were injured during protests in January.

The meeting starts at 3pm and will be streamed live here.