JEFF Palmer's duties this morning are hardly the stuff of cop dramas.
Sitting in his cruiser outside the North Vancouver RCMP detachment on a recent rainy Wednesday, the police constable goes over the day's assignments: He's helping with the search for a young man who disappeared from a group home; he's been asked by a couple going through a breakup to stand by while the man removes his belongings from their shared home; and at lunch he'll be stopping by the Squamish Nation Elders Centre to give an update on schoolzone speed enforcement. In the afternoon, he might put his head in at the Nation's youth centre to see how things are going. The tasks may not be glamorous, he explains, but they are important.
Palmer, an officer with the West Vancouver police, is part of the Integrated First Nations Unit. The six-member team, formed four years ago, is tasked with patrolling First Nations lands in North Vancouver, West Vancouver and Squamish. The countless minor tasks of the kind Palmer describes are key to the unit's work, as the interactions are meant to build something that for decades has been missing from the force's relationship with aboriginal communities: trust.
It's part of a wider effort by both the police and the Nations to heal a relationship that has been poisonous for generations.
. . .
Launched in 2008, IFNU is a long-overdue effort to address problems that arose decades ago when the Lower Mainland's municipalities - and by extension their various police forces - were formed without any consideration of First Nations geography.
While one of the North Shore's two aboriginal communities - the Tsleil-Waututh Nation - falls within the bounds of North Vancouver, the larger Squamish Nation's lands fall within multiple jurisdictions. The largest Squamish reserve, Xwemelch'stn, is split down the middle by the boundary between North and West Vancouver. Other territories fall entirely in North Vancouver and still others are situated far away in the District of Squamish. By bringing together members of all three police forces and dedicating the unit's time to First Nations, IFNU aims to remove the artificial barriers that have stood for decades in the way of effective policing of what is in essence a single, deeply connected community.
This morning is a case in point: The individual Palmer has been asked to help find, a "nice young man" whom he knows from past experience, left his group home for the weekend and never returned. The man suffers from a mental health issue that is worsened when he doesn't have his medication, leading those who know him to worry for his safety now that he's three days overdue
As a child, the man was fostered by a Squamish Nation family, and he often returns to this community for visits, leading police to believe he might be here.
Palmer has already checked the man's usual haunts and talked to some of his acquaintances, but hasn't had any luck, so now he's left just keeping an eye out for the man while he patrols - a task made much easier by the fact he can cross the municipal boundary. He drives slowly through Uslahawn, the Mission Reserve, in a cruiser decorated with Coast Salish designs and with three radios tuned to three different dispatchers.
With no sign of the young man, Palmer makes his way to his next assignment - keeping the peace while a man moves out of his former girlfriend's home. Palmer says he knows the couple and doesn't expect there to be a problem, but he says they asked the police to attend, so that's what he's doing. Palmer arrives at the home on Xwemelch'stn, parks his cruiser and walks up to the door.
. . .
The problems between police and First Nations are traced back by many commentators to the days of residential schools. Under Canada's destructive, decades-long policy aimed at assimilation, children - including many on the North Shore - were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in the institutions, subjected to neglect and abuse, stripped of their language and kept away from loved ones for years at a time.
For many older members of First Nations communities, according to those interviewed for this story, that nightmarish experience was linked inextricably with the police, who were often involved in the removal of children from their families.
"They were the authority that came and picked up our people," said Carla George, a Squamish Nation councillor and a member of the West Vancouver police board. "For many years, it's been a relationship of fear. . . . Where today we can pick up the phone and get a response, a police car, that hasn't always been the case."
Fred Harding, a West Vancouver corporal who has been involved in several projects aimed at bridging the divide, said that even in his time some appalling attitudes persisted inside the force. Harding said he remembers it vividly from his early days as an officer at another detachment in the 1980s.
"The kind of things police officers would routinely say in front of anybody who would listen were just despicable," he said. "It was just normal conversation back in the day. No one would challenge those kinds of conversations."
Even just seven or eight years ago, the disconnect was obvious, he said. There were one or two individual officers who took an interest in the North Shore's First Nations - Dick Clancy, a corporal who retired 14 years ago, was referred to in glowing terms by more than one elder interviewed for this story - but by and large, the relationship was a negative one, said Harding. "No police chief could have ever been able to be proud of how his department interacted with the Squamish Nation at that time."
But then in about 2005, from the police perspective anyway, things started to change. Harding, troubled by his own lack of understanding of the community, started reaching out with the help of then-West Vancouver police chief Scott Armstrong and others to people in the community.
They got some idea of the shape of the problem when they held a series of public forums that saw huge attendance from Nation members and an outpouring of pent-up grievances.
"It was as thought the floodgates had opened," said Harding. "There was a man at the meeting . . . who for 30-something years would not call the police. Those were the kinds of mentalities and issues we were dealing with. It wasn't just one-sided as well; there were a lot of people who worked at this police department who didn't want to go down there either for 30 years. The relationship had to change."
The efforts on the police side of things started simply, with Harding and other officers parking a mobile police centre outside of known drug dealers' homes to let them know they were there, and to meet members of the community who happened by.
They expanded from there with the launch of monthly meetings, the creation of a Block Watch program, monthly visits by an officer to solicit complaints from the community about policing and other changes.
In 2008, IFNU was formed. Other projects have followed, including annual summer camps for First Nations kids run by police.
These efforts were paralleled by tremendous undertakings by the Nations. The Squamish Peacekeepers program was revamped, the community started an annual rally for the victims of sex abuse, clean-ups of reserve land were held annually for several years, and the Caring for Our Youth Committee launched rallies, together with police, targeting drug dealers' homes.
Several years ago, a member of the Squamish council was invited to sit for the first time on the West Vancouver police board. The board held its first meeting on Nation land this month.
"They're building the communication and dialogue, and breaking the fear away from the police," said Carla George. "It's kind of a revelation in our community to have police."
Rueben George, the Tsleil-Waututh's director of community development, was similarly positive, saying the officers on patrol know many in the community by name.
"They know the history, and they understand there could be sensitive things going on," he said. "A person could be upset because someone passed away, and when (the police) are involved in the community, they'll know that; they'll know how to defuse the situation."
It's all part of a larger rejuvenation for his Nation, he said, together with economic development, improvements in educational opportunities and other changes.
. . .
After finishing his conversation at the home in preparation for the move-out, Palmer drives on to the elders' centre, where several people greet him by name. The attendees, just finishing up a luncheon, listen politely while he updates them on his unit's efforts to bring speeding under control in a nearby school zone, saying they have been doing enforcement, and that the municipality plans to install speed bumps soon.
Some in the audience nod in approval, but when Palmer is finished, a woman speaks up to challenge him on an another issue. Residents have been asking for the creation of a proper pedestrian crossing to the west of the centre where children and the elderly risk their lives daily on foot - so far, without action. Palmer assures her the problem will be addressed a year from now, when an adjoining bridge is replaced, but the speaker isn't satisfied.
"If this were West Vancouver, it would be fixed," she said. "We've been lobbying for it for 20 years. That's a long time."
Palmer gives more assurances, and ultimately she nods and sits down, but she clearly remains unhappy.
Palmer chats with some other attendees, and sits for a short time with some men playing cards before moving on.
. . .
The results of this joint effort are extremely difficult to measure. A report delivered to the West Vancouver police board this month detailing crime trends on Xwemulch'stn showed mixed results: Violent crime in 2011 was down by 14 per cent from the five-year average, and property crime was down by double that, but domestic disputes and overall calls for service were up.
Broken out by year, the stats are even less clear, with calls for different types of crime rising and falling from one year to the next. Violent crimes, for example, were at 51 in 2008, 26 in 2009, 55 in 2010, then back down to 46 in 2011.
Part of the problem is that, although individual incidents may loom large for the community, in statistical terms the numbers are relatively small. Of all the drug offences recorded by the WVPD in 2011, for example, just four per cent came from Xwemulch'stn. This means a single issue can swing the numbers wildly. Palmer noted that not long ago, police were called to a home in the community 37 times in one year, but the next year, when the man behind the disturbances sought addiction treatment, the calls to that address dropped to zero.
Harding is convinced the trend is real and positive, saying that calls for service have come down, and that he could think of 10 drug houses that had been closed recently and never reopened.
Rueben George was similarly upbeat about the trend: "There is a lot less," he said. "There's barely any crime in our community here, that's what I see."
But Carla George was less sure, saying she couldn't say with confidence one way or the other, and several people interviewed at the elders' centre were entirely unconvinced.
"I think it's still about the same level overall, but just with
different drugs that come up, you know," said lifetime resident Robert Yelton, 67. "If you go way back they were into heroin, and then crack cocaine come out."
Sam George, a former Peacekeeper who was playing cards with Yelton, complimented Palmer and IFNU, but shrugged when asked if he'd seen any improvement in crime.
"I live next door to a crack house," he said. "It's still going; the guy's still there."
Overall attitudes to the new approach are also complex.
"I've talked to many members who are very happy and comfortable that they're around," said Carla George. "But there are some people who have told me they don't like the presence of the police. They may have different reasons for that."
William Nahanee, 70, long an outspoken critic of the Squamish band council, falls into that latter group, saying the new pro-active approach is ineffective and invasive.
"I think we had a better relationship before; now they just come and go as they like on the reserve, and a lot of people are not happy with that," he said. " A lot of people on the reserve feel like this is private property. . . . (The police) should come down when we call them."
His view contrasts starkly with Yelton's: "They've been making it easier coming around now, building a rapport with the Nation; that's something our young kids really need to see."
. . .
After leaving the elder's centre, Palmer stops to talk to the man who will be moving out of his ex's family home later in the day, hammering out final arrangements. He then returns to patrol, slowing to say hello to a family out for a walk, before heading to the Nation's youth centre where a crowd of kids, out of school for Spring Break, are playing California Kick Ball. He says hello to one or two, and hands the camp leader a stack of police stickers to give out "if the kids are on their best behaviour" after the activity is done.
As Palmer is leaving First Nation's land later that day, a man crosses the street in front of his cruiser. Palmer rolls down his window and greets him by name. The man looks at him with mock severity, then grins.
"What's up, Jeff," he says. Palmer points to the huge coffee in the man's hands.
"You need wheels for that thing," he says. "Yeah?" says the man. He points to the Tim Horton's logo on the cup, then back down the road to the coffee shop - and presumably to its assortment of donuts.
"They're waiting for you," he says, and laughs.
Palmer snorts and rolls up his window. "He's a nice old guy," he says, before driving on.
Is the effort to bridge the divide paying off? Judging by the broad smile on Palmer's face, he seems genuinely to believe so.
