The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) has officially updated its handcuffing policy to require officers to consider a person’s age, ethnicity, and the seriousness of the alleged incident before using handcuffs to restrain the individual.
It also informs police officers that they can no longer view handcuffing someone who is under arrest, detained, or apprehended as a “routine action.”
The VPD said a “focal point of the policy” is that police officers “must be able to articulate the specific circumstance necessitating the use of handcuffs to restrain a person.”
Under the revised policy, the use of handcuffs must be considered necessary to protect the officers or the public from harm, prevent an individual from trying to leave, locate and preserve evidence, or facilitate the search of a detained or apprehended person.
“Officers have discretion on whether to use handcuffs, even when lawful authority to do so exists. Factors officers should consider prior to applying handcuffs include a person’s age, disabilities, their medical condition, injuries, their size, their ethnicity, or whether they are part of other equity deserving groups,” states the policy.
‘Policy and Training Review’
The path to officially updating the policy began in 2020. The Vancouver Police Board undertook a policy and training review following an incident in January that year in which an indigenous man and his 12-year-old granddaughter were handcuffed and were later determined not to have been involved in any crime.On May 14, 2021, Romilly was mistaken for a suspect wanted for assault, an individual decades younger, at an estimated age of 40 to 50. At the time, Romilly, 81, was out for a walk in Stanley Park when five officers approached him.
The judge told reporters that he was told to put his hands behind his back and handcuffed. After he told the officers he was a retired judge, they removed the handcuffs, he said.
Resolution
The VPD on April 6 this year reached an “informal resolution agreement” with Romilly, according to an April 9 CTV News article, which said the department issued the news release on the revised handcuff policy a day later as part of the resolution.The board in 2020 examined existing policy, training, case law, and legislation regarding handcuffs and other restraint devices, said the news release.
A bank employee phoned 911 on suspicion that their Indian status cards were fake. Both the child and Johnson were placed in handcuffs.
As part of the settlement, the board said police officers had discriminated against Maxwell and his granddaughter based on their indigenous background.
