Supervisor of downtown foot patrol says officers are 'deterring crime and catching criminals'

The London, Ont., police service opened a new downtown foot patrol office on Dundas Street last week. The office is home to 22 officers who were previously housed around the corner in a more hidden office, inside the Covent Garden Market.

London Morning host Rebecca Zandbergen met up with officer supervisor Sgt. Mike Pottruff to find out what the officers hope to achieve in their new location. Here is their conversation.

RZ: Why did you want to move to this space?

MP: This office space is part of the core area action plan by the City of London, so they wanted us to have a footprint on Dundas Place. I'm quite happy that we're here. This way we're way more visible for the foot traffic and we want to be part of the revitalization of Dundas Street, and what better way to have an office right here.

RZ: What kinds of changes have you noticed in the area over the years?

MP: Ten years ago, we had not nearly the amount of social problems down here that are probably tied directly back to the mental health, the drug addiction and the homeless problem. It wasn't there. Our major concern back then was Dundas and Richmond. It was a very busy spot. Lots of youth were hanging out there, committing crimes, and there was drug dealing. We don't have those problems that are stationed there. It's kind of all along Dundas and certainly the urban camping is something that 10 years ago, we didn't see. Even five years ago, we probably didn't have this much urban camping as we do now.

RZ: Why do you think that is? 

MP: To be honest, I'm not sure what what drives that. I know housing is an issue for a lot of people. I think it's the low barrier housing — and I know the city's working on this — but it's the people, that because of their behaviour, whether due to their mental illness or due to their drug psychosis for example, they go to shelter and they get kicked out of shelter. Rightly so, the shelters have to protect their employees. So they get kicked out of shelters and where else do you now send people that are banned from every shelter in the city? Invariably they end up here. The city is working on getting a low barrier shelter system so those people — barring the worst of the worst — they have a place to to go.

London police downtown foot patrol section

2 years ago

Duration 1:14

Sgt. Mike Pottruff is the supervisor of the London City Police Foot Patrol Section. The police service opened up a foot patrol office on Dundas Street last week.

RZ: What is the role of these officers then? If a lot of it is addictions and homelessness issues, what is the role of a police officer in that?

MP: Crime prevention is. You see me wearing my high visibility jacket. We want to be seen out here. Certain evidence-based policing models say that if an officer stays in a certain area for 15 minutes, that will have a crime deterrence factor for approximately three hours. We have several hot spots down here and we want to spend time and hopefully that does drive a decrease in in crime down here.

RZ: Do you just push it somewhere else though?

MP: That could very well happen. But where we're seeing high harm, high incident rates, we want to be there. And is going to drive it out? Sure, but it may, but we may prevent it from happening altogether.

RZ: Some people will say we need more social services down here. Do you think police are really the answer?

MP: I think there's a need for both. I think there's a need for us to to be down here and I would love to have more officers down here. I want people to say, 'Wow, I can see police officers. When I come downtown, I feel safe.'" In a perfect world, that's what I would love to have. Is there a need for more social services? One hundred per cent there is, absolutely. Sometimes in the middle of night, we're the only people that can respond to someone that's in crisis. I would love to have more.supports down here.

RZ: What is your response when someone is clearly in mental distress and in the middle of a crisis?

MP: If it's a 911 call, we're going to show up and we're going to try to talk to that person, and we're going to figure out what is their issue. Are they a danger to themselves or are they danger to others? Are they suffering from a mental health problem? Maybe they need to be apprehended and that's when we would take them to hospital. Maybe it's a situation where we can talk them down a little bit. Maybe it's just our mere presence. We can try and deescalate that individual. The way they're acting toward us drives how we're going to treat that person. It may not be criminal.

RZ: We have someone who's yelling right now. Are you concerned when you hear that?

MP: I'm not. We see that regularly. The behaviour is not criminal. It's not a policing issue. There are clearly suffering from some sort of mental illness or perhaps they're high on drugs. As long as they're not a danger to anybody, there's nothing we can do but hopefully our presence down here — for a person that lives down here, is working down here — they feel a little bit safer with us being close by. I think we need more mental health supports down here, we need more boots on the ground down here. Someone that's trained to deal with that person, can maybe calm them down and get them into a warm space or somewhere they're going to deescalate the situation a little bit.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.