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Chief Supt. Dyson Smith is now the NWT's top cop, and he aims to make an impact in the territory he has long called home.
"I'm really happy about this," Smith, a self-professed "family man," told SA国际影视传媒 soon after he was announced as the NWT 's new commanding officer. "I was born on the East Coast, but I consider myself equally Northerner. I've spent so much time in the North. I love the North, I love the people, I love the communities.
"My family was with me for most of this voyage, and they like the North too," he added. "We're invested, I'll put it that way."
Smith, who is of Metis heritage, has worked in policing for 24 years, and served in Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Nunavut and the NWT. During his tenure in the NWT, he has held several leadership roles, including officer in charge of North district, officer in charge of Yellowknife, assistant criminal operations officer, and, most recently, officer in charge of criminal operations.
One of his top priorities, as he stated in an initial press release about his new post, will be tackling the territory's drug problem, which is becoming a bigger and bigger issue in more and more communities SA国际影视传媒� to the point that some residents have attempted to take matters in their own hands.
He acknowledges that curbing the drug problem will not be easy, but is confident progress can be made through collaborative effort.
"The first thing that has to be recognized is that you can't police your way out of the drug problem," he said. "You can't. That's been tried for the last 30 years SA国际影视传媒� enforcement, enforcement, enforcement. It's like a dog chasing its tail. You might catch it from time to time, but you keep spinning.
"It really takes a whole government approach and a whole community approach. What I mean by that is investigations are like cars. They're only as good as the fuel you have. For us [the fuel is] information. We can investigate or open as many files as we want, but they're not going to go anywhere if we don't have the community support, and [the communities] giving us that information."
In terms of more tangible police efforts, Smith has great confidence in the new divisional drug strategy he helped roll out last year, which he contends has already produced "very impressive results," and should continue to do so.
The initiative has two phases. The first, he explained, concerns "building on our current resources and our skill sets at the detachment level."
"That includes greater awareness for search warrants, information gathering and intelligence sharing, which are very important at the ground level," he said. "We're actually being more aggressive in our media strategy too, where we're publicizing a lot of our good work, and over the last year, we've seen an increase in not only drug seizures, but charges being laid, successful prosecutions, as well as weapons being seized SA国际影视传媒� firearms. Years ago, we would think it was an impressive year if we had one or two handguns seized. Last year, I believe it was around 33 handguns that we seized off the street."
The second phase of the new drug strategy, which is "coming online" currently, concerns the 's "request for a dedicated enforcement unit."
"The territorial government has been very supportive and we appreciate that immensely because they've provided us funding to do just that," he said. "We're in the process now of building that unit, which takes time. Hopefully, it'll come online in the fall, but certainly over the winter by the time we get that staffed. Their number one mandate is going to be drugs."
Another of Smith's objectives is what he refers to as "demystifying the police." He recognizes that many people view law enforcement officers with skepticism or outright distrust, and he hopes to change that perception through communication and openness.
"Something I've always believed in is that policing shouldn't be a mystery SA国际影视传媒� with the exception of certain techniques that have to remain secretive, otherwise criminals will basically have a way of trying to counteract those attempts at detecting crime," he said. "It shouldn't be a secret as to why we deploy a police dog in a certain situation, or why our emergency response team is being deployed for a certain situation. I want to take that mystery away from it. I want to pull the curtain back and make it so that people are more confident in the police force, as well as comfortable when they suddenly see these tactical police officers land in their community SA国际影视传媒� [I hope they] understand that these are the good guys. These are the highly-trained, tactical police officers that are coming in to support the community in a potentially risky situation.
"We want people to understand why we do things when we do them, rather than how we usually have operated over the years. [If we say], 'Well, we really can't talk about that,' then that leaves rumour and speculation leading the charge rather than fact. Fact is what we need."
As his tenure as the NWT 's commanding officer begins, Smith encourages all residents to be "patience and understanding."
"Police are often engaged with people on their worst day, but keep in mind that for a police officer that's every day," he said. "For that police officer and SA国际影视传媒� and most of our employees SA国际影视传媒� that's every day, day in and day out. It can be stressful, it can be difficult, but we're trying to show a more human side of policing, which also means that humans are fallible."
