All lights, all the time
Sometimes VicPD discloses initiatives in their police board agendas. Here are some excerpts from an FOI I filed about VicPD’s dream of a “steady blue light pilot,” to have lights on their cars all the time so people feel like they’re being watched.
These blue lights would be kept on, whenever, wherever, and perhaps always, to “increase visibility and highlight the vehicle’s presence,” so people know the police are there, watching.
VicPD’s emails show that it’s a pet project of Manak’s. Unfortunately for Manak, VicPD can’t just do it; they need permission from the province. A provincial staff member said there are traffic safety concerns to look into, for example.
A VicPD employee told Manak “It appears they are making a way bigger deal out of this than it needs to be. Manak was annoyed. “I thought you had said there was nothing stopping us,” he replied.
Chief Manak wrote to the province on October 21st, 2019 to say he really wanted to do it, and they were already retrofitting six cars. The province wrote back on November 7th to say they need to look at benefits and risks.
On November 20th, Manak told the Delta PD chief (who's also keen) that they’d gone ahead and “purchased six light bars which have the 'steady blue light' option and our plan is to deploy six marked Chargers with these light bars as part of a one-year pilot project.”
VicPD’s justification for all this? People who responded to police surveys, councils, and the police board allegedly want greater police visibility. Did those same people say they wanted blue lights on cop cars to make sure they know they’re living in a surveillance state?
Victoria is already the second-most policed area in the country, per Stats Can. The city doesn’t need blue lights on cop cars telling people that police are watching, and that everyone (particularly poor people and people of colour) should look out.
There is more than a little arrogance on display in these emails. Forget that people might not want more police in their lives and an expanded surveillance state, and to hell with safety concerns — we’re VicPD, damn it.
This pilot is an awful idea and I hope it never happens. It’s one example of the types of things VicPD gets up to when there’s no accountability.
Update: VicPD posted the blue lights FOI online, if anyone’s interested. That's good, but also strange. They say they post “most” general FOI requests online for “open and transparent communications,” which is just a lie: they’ve posted eight since 2012.