Vancouver Police Department

At the first meeting of Vancouver City Council, Vancouver's first police officer, Chief Constable John Stewart, was appointed on May 10, 1886.

On June 14, 1886, the morning after the Great Fire of 1886, Mayor McLean appointed Jackson Abray, V.W. Haywood, and John McLaren as special constables. With uniforms from Seattle and badges fashioned from American coins, this four man team became Vancouver's first police department based out of the City Hall tent at the foot of Carrall Street. These four were replaced in 1887 by special constables sent by the provincial government in Victoria for not keeping the peace during the anti-Asian unrest of that year. The strength of the force increased from four to fourteen as a result.

The first Vancouver Police Department posing after the Great Fire of 1886 razed the city

By 1904, the department had grown to 31 members and occupied a new police building at 200 Cordova Street. In 1912, Vancouver's first two women were taken on the force as matrons. With the amalgamation of Point Grey and South Vancouver with Vancouver in 1929, the department absorbed the two smaller police forces under the direction of Chief Constable W.J. Bingham, a former district supervisor with the Metropolitan Police in London. By the 1940s the department had grown to 570 members.

Mosaic marking the spot where Chief Constable McLennan was killed in 1917

In 1912, L.D. Harris and Minnie Miller were hired as the first two policewomen in Canada.

In 1917, Chief Constable McLennan was killed in the line of duty in a shoot-out in Vancouver's East End. Responding to a call by a landlord attempting to evict a tenant, the police were met by gunfire. Along with McLennan, the shooter was killed in the battle, as was a nine-year-old boy in the vicinity at Georgia and Jackson streets, which is now marked by a mosaic memorial. A detective who lost an eye in the shootout, John Cameron, later became the chief constable of the New Westminster Police Department before taking the top job of the Vancouver force, which he occupied from 1933 to the end of 1934.

Another member of the force was killed in the line of duty in 1922. Twenty-three-year-old constable, Robert McBeath, was shot by a man stopped for impaired driving. McBeath received the Victoria Cross for "most conspicuous bravery" at the Battle of Cambrai in France in the First World War. McBeath's killer, Fred Deal, was initially sentenced to death, but won an appeal reducing it to life in prison because he had been beaten while in custody. The marine squad's boat, the R.G. McBeath VC, was commissioned in 1995 and named in honour of McBeath.

Plans for a new police building at 312 Main Street began in 1953. The Oakridge police station opened in 1961.

A police memorial at 325 Main St. is dedicated to the Vancouver Police Department members who died in the First and Second world wars and lists the Vancouver Police Department members killed in the line of duty in Vancouver.[6]

In 1935, under Chief Constable W. W. Foster, the Vancouver Police Department was complemented with hundreds of special constables because of a waterfront strike led by communists, which culminated in the Battle of Ballantyne Pier, a riot that broke out when demonstrators attempted to march to the docks to confront strikebreakers. Also that year, nearly 2,000 unemployed men from the federal relief camps scattered throughout the province flocked to Vancouver to protest camp conditions. After two months of incessant demonstrations, the camp strikers left Vancouver and began the On-to-Ottawa Trek.

The Vancouver Police were at the centre of one of the biggest scandals in the city's history in 1955. Feeling frustrated that blatant police corruption was being ignored by the local media, a reporter for the Vancouver Daily Province switched to a Toronto-based tabloid, Flash. He wrote a sensational article alleging corruption at the highest levels of the police department in Vancouver, specifically, that a pay-off system had been implemented whereby gambling operations that paid the police were left alone and those that did not were harassed. After the Flash article appeared in Vancouver, the allegations could no longer be ignored, and a Royal Commission, the Tupper Commission, was struck to hold a public inquiry. Chief Constable Walter Mulligan fled to the United States, another officer from the upper ranks committed suicide, and still another attempted suicide rather than face the inquiry.[7] Other scandals and public inquiries plagued the force before and since this one, dubbed the "Mulligan Affair", but none were so dramatic. An earlier inquiry into corruption in 1928 was ambiguous in its conclusions as to the extent of the problem. The last major inquiry into policing in Vancouver focused largely on police accountability. Judge Wally Oppal (later provincial attorney general), submitted the results of his report in 1994 in a four volume package entitled Closing the Gap: Policing and the Community.[8]

In 2009, the RCMP "E" Division joined forces with VPD to operate the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET)—Vancouver, operating out of VPD facilities instead of the INSET-BC Surrey operation base.[9]

VPD beach patrol at Kitsilano Beach

Members of the Vancouver Police Pipe Band outside Buckingham Palace, June 2014.

The 1,716 employees of the VPD [2] have been headed by Chief Constable Adam Palmer since May 6, 2015, following the retirement of Jim Chu. Three sections or units are assigned to the office of the chief constable:[10]

• Chief's executive officer: Inspector Ruben Sorge
• Planning, research and audit section: Drazen Manojlovic
• Community and public affairs section: Director Simi Heer[11]
  • Block watch
  • Community policing centres
  • Diversity and Aboriginal policing section
  • Victim services unit

The Vancouver Police Union is a trade union that represents 1,450 front-line police officers, jail guards and special constables of the Vancouver Police Department.[12]

The force has three operating divisions:[2]

Operations

Vancouver Traffic Authority shoulder flash

Vancouver Police vessel

Led by Deputy Chief Constable Howard Chow

• All patrols
  • Mounted squad
  • Marine squad
  • Traffic section
• Emergency and operations planning section
  • Emergency planning unit
  • Operational planning unit
  • Vancouver Traffic Authority (special municipal constable with restricted peace officer status)
• Emergency response section
• Emergency response team
• Dog squad

Investigation

Vancouver Police at an Occupy Vancouver gathering

Led by Deputy Chief Constable Laurence Rankin since 2016.[21] As an Inspector, Laurence Rankin led the Integrated Riot Investigation Team. This is a team of investigators and support personnel who investigated the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot. Deputy Chief Rankin is a provincially accredited Team Commander for major investigations. In 2014, he completed a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in criminal justice at the University of the Fraser Valley. In 2015, he completed the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) Executive Global Studies Program, during which he studied international approaches to cybercrime. In 2019, Deputy Chief Rankin completed the Leadership in Counter Terrorism Program, a joint senior executive leadership program that exposes participants to case studies, literature and discussions on terrorism from international experts, academics, and practitioners. In 2018, Deputy Chief Rankin was invested into the Order of Merit of the Police Forces by the Governor General of Canada.[22]

Investigative Services

Major Crime Section

Organized Crime Section

Special Investigation Section

Investigative Support Services

Forensic Services Section

General Investigation Section

Tactical Support Section

Youth Services Section

Support services

A Vancouver Police Department officer on a motorbike

Led by Deputy Chief Constable Steve Rai

• Communications section
• Court and detention services section
  • Vancouver Jail guard (special municipal constable with peace officer status)
• Human resources section
• Facilities section
• Financial services section
• Information management section
• Information technology section
• Professional standards section
• Recruiting and training section

Rank	Chief constable	Deputy chief constable	Superintendent	Inspector	Staff sergeant	Sergeant	Police constable 1st class/detective	Police constable 2nd class	Police constable 3rd class	Police constable 4th class
Insignia

• Special municipal constable (traffic authority/jail guard/community safety personnel)

• Adam Palmer 2015–present
• Jim Chu 2007–2015
• Jamie Graham 2002–2007
• Terry Blythe 1999–2002
• Bruce Chambers 1997–1999
• Raymond J. Canuel 1994–1997
• Bob Stewart 1981–1991
• Don Winterton 1974–1981
• John Fisk 1968–1974
• Ralph Booth 1962–1968
• George Archer 1956–1962
• Walter Mulligan 1947–1955 – charged with corruption and fled to Los Angeles, returned to Canada in 1963 and died in 1987[23]
• John McLaren 1890–?
• John Stewart 1886–1890

The VPD is divided into four geographic districts:

• District 1: Downtown, Granville, West End and Coal Harbour
• District 2: Grandview-Woodland and Hastings-Sunrise
• Beat Enforcement Team: Downtown Eastside, Chinatown and Gastown
• District 3: Collingwood and South Vancouver
• District 4: Kerrisdale, Oakridge, Dunbar, West Point Grey, Kitsilano, Arbutus, Shaughnessy, Fairview, Musqueam and Marpole

• Eurocopter EC120 Colibri: air patrol operations shared with RCMP "E" Division
• Ford Crown Victoria interceptors (being phased out)
• Lenco BearCat APC: purchase approved
• Cambli International Thunder 1 ARV—delivered 2010 for ERT use
• Ford Taurus two unmarked black Ford interceptor sedans (the demonstrators that were kept)
• Dodge Charger police pursuit (replacement for Ford Crown Victoria)
• Ford police interceptor utility unmarked and marked supervisor vehicles
• Chevrolet Tahoe unmarked SUVs
• Ford Fusion CSP/special investigations
• Ford F-150 traffic authority
• Ford F-350 ERT
• Ford Expedition ERT
• Mobile Command Centre Mobile Command Centre for Communications and transportation of command members.

• Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit – British Columbia
• E-Comm, 9-1-1 call and dispatch centre for Southwestern BC
• Project Griffin, crime prevention/reduction program launched in 2009
• RCMP "E" Division—British Columbia's contract policing for surrounding areas (UBC, Burnaby, Surrey, etc.)
• Metro Vancouver Transit Police
• Vancouver Police Pipe Band
• Bloody Sunday (1938)
• Internment of Japanese Canadians
• Gastown riots
• Missing and murdered Indigenous women

• "Vancouver Police Department – History"
• Joe Swan, A Century of Service: The Vancouver Police 1886–1986. Vancouver: Vancouver Police Historical Society and Centennial Museum, 1986.

• Official website
• Vancouver Police Museum
• Vancouver Police Foundation