Engagement, Community and the Winnipeg Police Service
Chief Danny Smyth
This week's Tried and True features Superintendent Bonnie Emerson and her views on Community Engagement. I am a huge supporter of the community work that she has been involved in for most of her adult life both on and off the job. I was also pleased to see her join the WPS Executive Management Team earlier this year. She is well-positioned to help the WPS renew our relationships in the community in the aftermath of the pandemic, and she is the right person at the right time to foster new relationships that contribute to safe and healthy communities across Winnipeg.
Bonnie Emerson,
Superintendent Community Engagement
In May 2022 I was promoted to the newly created Superintendent of Community Engagement portfolio. This is a new position in the Winnipeg Police Service and is an opportunity, I believe, to really impact safety and wellbeing throughout Winnipeg and within the police service itself.
To give some sense and meaning to the what and why surrounding “community engagement”, I thought I would model what I believe is important – being accountable and transparent to each of you; sharing some of my story on how each of us makes a difference; how this connects us to each other and our community; and how this positively impacts community safety. These things are I believe, at the heart of “community engagement.”
Words matter.
There is so much to the meaning in the words “community engagement”. It implies “positive relationships” but, much like “collaboration,” “community policing,” or even just “policing,” each of us will likely have a unique and sometimes different understanding of what these are. It is important to clarify our own understanding of terms when we engage so that we are confident we are discussing the same thing.
Some of you who are still reading this may have been surprised that I typed Superintendent Community Engagement = “safety and wellbeing” in my first paragraph. But I did. Bottom line, we are police officers and our Mission statement is to “Build safe and healthy communities across Winnipeg through excellence in law enforcement, protection and crime prevention”. The relationships we have and build with the community, are critical to effective policing.
In Indigenous cultures and my own understanding growing up, police officers are peacekeepers, they are the protectors of our community and part of the community. This was why I applied to join the Winnipeg Police Service more than 30 years ago. Many people reference Robert Peels’ principal that “The Police are the Public; the Public are the Police”, but either way both concepts maintain that police/peacekeepers serve the people and to do this effectively we must fairly reflect these people in all we do.
The what and why.
We accomplish our Mission statement through our relationships, with each other, with our community, and with our partners. We rely on the public’s assistance in our investigations. Effective crime prevention collaboration may mean fewer calls for service and fewer resources required. We cannot protect if we are overwhelmed, outnumbered or unaware of where or when the risks are, who is in need or how we can help? How does our community assist with crime prevention (we know we cannot do it all) if they do not have the tools or are afraid to call us or work with us?
Community Engagement requires connection and understanding. Essentially, no one will talk or engage with the police if they believe that nothing will happen, if they are to be ignored or if they do not trust/are afraid (of us). We must therefore build a relationship, we must engage, talk, and trust. We must know each other.
To begin a dialogue, establishing or building relationships must be meaningful. Let’s not waste each other’s time. It is important to ask questions, listen, patiently explain, and engage respectfully and honestly with each other to ensure mutual understanding.
Where I come from we tell stories to share history and meaning, to connect. I try by modelling and storytelling. We are all a story and by sharing our stories we connect and better understand each other. We stop “othering” each other, and we become a community to and for each other. If we don't understand, we don't know. Granted, my life partner often says my stories don't make sense to him at first but I keep telling them and eventually, he gets it, or he and I come to a place where we share some understanding together, sometimes a different story than I started to tell. We do not give up! I believe the same thing applies to “us” at the Winnipeg Police Service. We do not give up because we care.
Transparency and accountability
So, I am going to back up a bit here and hold myself accountable to you. I will try to share who I am and what I hope we can accomplish as we develop the community engagement portfolio together. I will try to explain through stories what I mean.
I was on holiday, when I received the notification about the opening of Superintendent of Community Engagement and asked if I was interested in applying? As this was a new position and portfolio, there was no job description and no precedent.
I knew it would mean increased public scrutiny and loss of a bit more of my privacy. As outwardly gregarious as I may seem to some, I find public events exhausting. Do not get me wrong, I love engaging and connecting, I just need time to decompress after and ensure I also have some time for myself and my family. I covet my privacy and I rarely share a lot about my personal life publicly. I knew that this would have to change if I were to effectively engage in the public venue and I knew that the public venue was required for us effectively build community engagement.
I knew that this position was an opportunity that also came with distinct advantages. I would not be limited by “this is how we do things”, because we had not done this before (at least not this way). Could this position be a mechanism for building community relationships to make a tangible difference in our mutual work? Support both our members and our community. How could I not try?
I was proud and humbled when Chief Smyth called me to share the news I was successful and welcomed me to the new position of Superintendent of Community Engagement. For those of you who may not be aware, all sworn members of the Executive are listed on our public website. My bio is now on the Winnipeg Police Service website for all to read and see https://www.winnipeg.ca/police/AboutTheService/bios.stm
My bio shares some of who I am. My stories share more. There is only so much that can be shared at one time, but I commit to sharing more, providing updates and being open to those who wish to engage, wish to collaborate/contribute or would like to meet to share some ideas.
Making a difference together
How do we do this work? How do I/we quantify the qualitative? How do I express and share the pride in the humans I work with at the Winnipeg Police Service while also acknowledging system inequities and identifying needed change? How do we/I include diverse views and effectively ensure we represent and reflect the community we serve? How do we protect our citizens and our membership?
Spoiler alert if anyone is expecting to read all the answers here right now, you will be disappointed. I believe I have some. But only some. I am writing this article to hold myself to public account by making a promise in this public forum, knowing I will be questioned and scrutinized and looking forward to the tough conversations that this promises.
I do not believe any one of us has a single answer. There is no one answer. There are many. We must actively seek out and incorporate diverse views within the Winnipeg Police Service and outside through community engagement. To connect. To share. To work together, to help each other. Then the world changes again and we must adapt, regroup and begin anew. If it was easy it would have been done a long time ago.
Going forward, I hope to highlight and share the amazing work that so many of us do. Many of us are humble and often do not wish our stories and selfless work to be shared because we do not do this work for the glory. We do it because we care. I will be engaging and asking for permission to share some of our work, our stories, to let our larger community know these things, so they know us – know that inside our uniform is a human that cares and is trying to help.
It is by sharing our stories that we can collectively grow the Winnipeg Police Service to be an organization that represents and reflects the community that we serve and effectively collaborates on what we need as a Winnipeg community.
As a private citizen, I have been actively involved in the community and non-government organizations (NGO) and boards, for over 3 decades, working to support the community, address poverty, employment, conflict resolution and safety. These organizations are filled with people who were also dedicating their lives to help in the same way.
In 2021, the Winnipeg Police Service reported that our members supported 82 Boards and committee in reportable categories. In fact, our members sat on over 150+ committees and boards in all categories beyond those noted below.
These numbers do not represent the personal volunteer boards, committee events and hours our members dedicated to community organization and causes on their own time. Those numbers would be hundreds if not thousands. Almost every member I have spoken with volunteers or contributes in some/many ways on their own time.
I co-founded a charity in 2020 with my life partner, personally, on our own time. Sleep in Heavenly Peace Winnipeg (SHPW) is 100% volunteer (no one gets paid). We build, deliver and then install beds (for free) for local children in need who do not have a bed. They come complete with bedding and mattresses. The demand is massive. We have a large number of CORE Steering Committee of volunteers/friends many of whom are or were police officers. We could not do any of it without them or the community volunteers, corporate donors and individual citizens who have helped with time or contributions.
SHPW partners with many community organizations including the Winnipeg Police Service. SHPW has received a number of referrals from uniform patrol members, sex crimes, child abuse and/or domestic violence investigators in the last two years because it is these investigators who see the need when they respond when people are in crisis. Officers reached out and connected the families to resources and support. They have often gathered a collection themselves to assist with extra bedding or stuffies for the children. We do not often get to share these stories on our website because of the required privacy of these situations. They are often horribly traumatic and have kept many of the members awake at night worried for the people involved.
Just one week ago at a SHPW bed BUILD event members from the North End uniform shift heard about a SHPW bed BUILD event for children who fled Ukraine and were newly arrived in Winnipeg. The children had little belongings and no bed. SHPW built 63 beds. A couple of officers from the North End shared this event with their shift and then showed up at the event with their cruiser car filled with bedding donations they had collected. Their car was surrounded by children who were at the event and by some of the newly arrived Ukrainian refugees themselves who could not stop smiling and were so happy that our police service was there to support THEM!
https://www.facebook.com/SHPWinnipeg/photos/a.1009554546187439/1363169540825936/
How we can make a difference
I know we are making a difference with each of these connections and stories. Often times we are told that we need to plan to sustain change for 7 generations. My sister has given me permission to share this last story that shows how change has been made in 3 generations in our own family.
My sister Rita asked our grandpa who was Indigenous if he practiced ceremony when he was growing up. He shared that it was against the law to do so. He recalled when he was little he remembers going into the woods and there was drumming, he was hiding, and he remembers being afraid, that they could not get caught by the police. He remembers running with his uncle and being afraid. My grandpa is no longer with us. Rita is a kookum (grandmother) now.
In 2019, the Winnipeg Police Service was being honoured/gifted with an Eagle Staff at Manito Ahbee Festival. https://www.winnipeg.ca/police/units_and_divisions/eaglestaff/#:~:text=On%20May%2019%2C%202019%20the,the%20nation's%20identity%20and%20principles. I was the Inspector of the Community Support Division and was invited to participate.
I invited my nephew’s family to attend the Pow Wow to see this ceremony. Later that evening, my little grandnephew, Ritas’ 2-year-old grandson Dev phoned Rita excited and said “kookum I ow wow”. Rita did not know what he meant and asked if he was hurt? “No” he said “I ow wow”, she realized that he was sharing that he had gone to the pow wow and had danced. She cried as she remembered our grandpas’ story and realized this was a tangible act of reconciliation. In our grandfather’s generation, it was against the law to attend or participate in the pow wow, the police were feared. Now 3 generations later, a member of this same family is a police officer proudly supporting and practicing Indigenous ceremony/ traditions within the police service itself, and it is the police themselves inviting youth to attend and participate in the ceremony.
Positive change does happen.
I am proud to belong to an organization filled with heroes. I am so proud of the commitment, dedication and tireless effort I have seen day in and day out and how, especially in the midst of a global pandemic, with escalating violence, increasing demand, and decreasing resources, you all show up each shift and keep protecting and serving. It is time to focus on how we can continue making positive differences and how we can work together with our community to do more of this work.