Edmonton’s police chief admits patience is not his strong suit.
“You know, I think there’s always things you want to do a little quicker or a little bit faster,” Dale McFee told CBC News in a year-end interview.
This is McFee’s first year as Edmonton’s top cop.
His contract began on February 1.
By April 1, two former executives he worked with in Saskatchewan were employed with the Edmonton Police Service in newly created civilian positions.
Ron Anderson is now chief technical and innovation officer. Enyinnah Okere holds the title of executive director of the value and impact division.
McFee admitted neither job was posted before they were filled, nor was there a typical interview process.
The City of Edmonton’s hiring policy says the city is “committed to the principle of fair and equitable hiring and therefore all positions will be filled by competition.”
McFee defended his hiring decisions. He told CBC News he was transparent about his plan with the Edmonton Police Commission and the Senior Officers’ Association.
“You’ll see me upfront and transparent about everything,” McFee said. “There’s no apologies needed here because this is how you run a business.”
The chief is determined to use data and technology to drive change. He said the two executives he brought in from Saskatchewan will provide what’s needed to make a fundamental difference.
“I’m running a $450-million dollar business,” McFee said. “When you come in to make change, you’ve got to have some expertise. I’m very confident in the people I’ve brought in have that expertise.”
The chief also said he’s terminated 13 civilians at three different levels since taking over.
“They’re not all for the same reasons,” McFee said. “Some were savings, some were just change in leadership, some were change in direction.”
McFee insists solutions are in the data that is being crunched and analyzed.
“We’ve said that we want to be the safest city in the country,” McFee said. “For the last 15 or more years, we’ve been the third highest of large cities and that’s not acceptable. The answers are in the data. That’s why we’ve really enhanced that.
“We’re going to do what we can to fix what we can.”
Discipline Fatigue
When McFee took over as chief, he let his sworn officers know right away that he thought the service was suffering from “discipline fatigue”.
He sent a message to all police officers using that phrase.
McFee said he was determined to do things differently from his predecessor, Rod Knecht.
“We need to make sure that we’re not using discipline as a sentence,” McFee said. “There’s a big difference between discipline and accountability versus a prosecution.
“What we’re trying to do is put the balance in. We’re going to make some mistakes. We need to own up to it. Then we need to deal with it accordingly.”
The most recent Professional Standards Branch annual report indicates 301 formal complaints were made regarding officers’ conduct in 2018, representing a 9.1 per cent increase over the year before.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team also handles investigations involving alleged police misconduct or the death or injury of someone due to the actions of an officer.
As of Sept. 30, 2019, ASIRT had been assigned 12 files involving the Edmonton Police Service, compared to eight in 2018.
One of this year’s files involves a convicted car thief. Kyle Parkhurst was kicked repeatedly and thrown headfirst into a brick wall and pistol-whipped after he was handcuffed. The incident was captured on cellphone video.
McFee said he is waiting for the outcome of the ASIRT investigation. Until the year-end interview, he had declined comment to CBC News on the video.
“Well I mean my reaction is why,” McFee said. “But at the same time, the video is a snapshot in time. I’m not going to sit here and defend anybody on the video. My job is to make sure I have all the stuff before I make a decision.”
The chief confirmed the officer who was involved in the incident remains reassigned to administrative duty, pending the outcome of the ASIRT investigation.
‘You don’t know the whole story until you get here’
McFee admitted the past eleven months have held some surprises. He said one of those was the previous level of communication with the family of slain officer, Daniel Woodall.
Woodall was shot and killed in the line of duty on June 8, 2015, by Norman Raddatz during the execution of a warrant. Raddatz subsequently set his house on fire and shot himself.
When a pair of internal Edmonton police reviews were completed, McFee arranged to have Woodall’s parents, wife and sons flown to Edmonton for a thorough briefing.
He sat in the same room with them for several hours to answer all their questions.
“There’s things you don’t know about when you come onto the job,” McFee said. “You don’t know the whole story until you get here. But it’s also your job to move forward, right?”
He called the restorative justice approach with Woodall’s family “really productive” and said he hoped past mistakes won’t be repeated.
“Lord help us, we never want this to happen again,” McFee said.
“But if it does, we need to be better than we were the first time.”