A veteran Edmonton police officer says there needs to be drastic changes to city policing in order to win back the hearts and minds of vulnerable community members. 

“We’ve lost that based on our own actions,” said Edmonton Police Service Insp. Dan Jones, noting that a lack of community support is detrimental to law enforcement. “We become militarized, we become unapproachable and we become a watered down version of what we’re supposed to be.”

Jones offered a police perspective on institutionalized racism at a social justice forum run by the Ogaden Somali Community of Alberta Residents and Concordia University of Edmonton. 

“We help people aspire to the labels that we give them based on the system,” he said Saturday during a panel discussion.  “We have to change the mentality (from) warriors to guardians.”

EPS Deputy Chief Brian Simpson noted officers are trained in bias-free policing, learning how to effectively communicate with various cultures. But there’s need for improvement, he said.  

“It’s going to be a challenge, there are a lot of set institutional pieces, laws and policies that actually impact how we do business, but that can change,” he said. “We’ve seen the example of what broke in the United States, we’re not there fortunately but we have an opportunity to get ahead of that and not wait.”

“That’s why we want to be part of that discussion.”

Simpson added that the police force carries a negative stigma for many newcomers to Canada. 

“With new Canadians coming in, Syrian refugees most recently, a lot of individuals hitting our city come from countries where the police were the authorities feared and hated,” he said. 

But changes can’t happen overnight.

“We’re recognizing the fact that the community has to be that catalyst of change. We have to listen to the community and understand what that dynamic will look like when we do our policing,” Simpson said.  

Sandra Song, director of the public health department at Concordia University, said the social justice forum is an opportunity to talk about issues such as carding, the practice of random police checks that has been criticized as a form of racial profiling. 

“We’re hoping to build awareness around institutional racism and hopefully derive community-led solutions to the issue,” she said. “There is a cross-section of sectors that need to be here to have an open dialogue.”

The forum will continue Sunday Feb. 12, at Concordia University of Edmonton at 7123 Ada Blvd.