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Defund and Disarm the OPS

Hi,

I am a Canadian Citizen living in Ottawa. Having immigrated to Canada for a safer and more prosperous life, I am very fortunate to have the privileges I do. However, knowing first-hand how it is to be powerless against the brutality of law enforcement and peoples of authority, I am extremely distraught that the very same situations from which my family has escaped are also very much prevalent in this new "safehaven". Police brutality and unaccountablilty is not solved by police expansion and simple reform. The OPS are tasked with a myriad of responsibilities but are provided with minimal training. By defunding the police and reallocating that budget to other public systems and community programs, we allow for adequately-trained personnel belonging to those factions to better handle situations that police are underqualified and overequipped to handle. Disarming the police involves exhausting all non-lethal resources before resorting to violent and possibly lethal intervention tactics, providing better quality and longer periods de-escalation training, and eliminating the carry of lethal weapons (ex. firearms) during non-criminal calls for service (ex. wellness checks). If the OPS really is committed to protect the safety and security of the community, disarming the OPS is vital considering: that the use of firearms is the most common intervention tactic, OPS training only consists of 16 hours of CEW training with de-escalation components (and only 5 hours of re-certification training every year), and that 50%-80% of calls of service are non-criminal events. The inadequate training and overequipping of OPS, is not only unacceptable but is detrimental to the safety and security of our community. Defund and Disarm the OPS.

Regards,

Serenity

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