By Cheryl Jahn

Bylaw Officers get training

Aug 2, 2023 | 3:21 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Prince George has 21 Bylaw Services Officers, all those folks who break up camps to deal with unsightly premises to parking violations. And recently, those 21 officers were given additional tools to defend themselves. Specifically, batons, pepper spray and handcuffs.

“Everything to do with bylaws becomes quite contentious,” says Charlotte Peters, Manager of Bylaw Services. “And I think the City of Prince George, as an employer, we have a responsibility to keep our employees safe. And in comparison with other communities across the province, it’s become a best practice. And I think it was just time for Prince George to get on board.”

The role of the Bylaws Officers has changed in recent years, taking on more and more confrontational capacity, often dealing with violent and unpredictable individuals.

“We’ve had a soccer mom incident where we were at Masich Place Stadium and there was an elementary school track and field event and parents were parking everywhere in such a way that we emergency vehicles couldn’t get in,” notes Peters. “So we had to issue some tickets. And when the day was over and our parking guys were leaving, they had parents following them in their cars and, you know, honking their horns and trying to block the bylaw officers in. So, I mean, threats of violence are always prevalent. Any time you’re doing something that somebody else isn’t going to be happy about.”

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“Define what a crisis is for some. For some people, a crisis could be they’ve just been told they have terminal cancer that could solicit an abnormal violent reaction because they might not know how to react to that,” says Mike Massine. “For other people, it could be something as simple as a parking ticket and what gets people, though, especially when we’re talking about money, you know, for the enforcement role of by law, money creates a crisis.”

Massine is a former Victoria Police Department officer and now trains Bylaws Officers in the use of those defensive tools.

“So the primary focus of the training is simply avoidance, creating distance, creating time, getting an object between an angry subject and the officer controlling themselves so they can avoid physical confrontation either with their hands or with the weapons and good strategies to talk to people that are agitated and maybe in crisis.”

The training these officers is on par with their peers in 13 other BC communities and the use of these tools.

“So if there was a serious incident and the bylaw officers had witnessed something that was an egregious sort of criminal act, they could step in and use their handcuffs and use the training that they have to arrest somebody. But then their their next responsibility is to turn that person over to the police so they wouldn’t be doing any of that unless police were already coming and there was a threat to themselves or somebody around them.”