The response time of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) has increased significantly in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce since the closure of the local neighborhood station in 2019.
Posted at 10:36 a.m.
This assessment, carried out by the police themselves, is published two weeks after Chief Sylvain Caron suggested closing several of his 30 neighborhood police stations on the island of Montreal and changing the SPVM’s deployment model.
“The average response time to priority 1, 2 and 3 calls from neighborhood station 9 [Côte-Saint-Luc et Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, né de la fusion] integrated in 2020-2021 is respectively 17.1%, 16.4% and 21.2% slower than the average response time to priority 1, 2 and 3 calls from neighborhood station 11 [Notre-Dame-de-Grâce seulement, maintenant fermé] in 2019-2020”, indicates a report from the SPVM which takes stock of the merger, a year later.
The document was submitted Wednesday morning to the executive committee of the City of Montreal. Priority 1 to 3 calls are the most urgent.
The report notes that despite this increase, the response time of the new merged position is below the SPVM average.
The service qualifies this variation as “insignificant”. “Variation in on-call response time is a normal result of PDQ integration,” the document also notes.
“Points for improvement”
In an intervention made by tabling the report, the head of public security on the executive committee, Alain Vaillancourt, promised to monitor the situation.
“This report does not demonstrate that the integration of the two positions has a negative impact on the territory, so in itself this is very good news,” he said. “On the other hand, we still see areas for improvement, particularly on the question of response times. Rest assured that the mayor of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and I will ensure constant monitoring and follow up very closely. »
Mr. Vaillancourt also pointed out that the merger of the stations had enabled the creation of a pedestrian patrol appreciated by the citizens, as well as an improvement in night coverage on the territory of the new PDQ.
At the beginning of January, police chief Sylvain Caron took everyone by surprise by publicly affirming that the neighborhood police model, applied by the SPVM for 25 years, had had its day.
Mr. Caron argued that maintaining 30 antennae scattered across the island was too costly in terms of money and personnel.
“I no longer believe in the current structure,” he told elected municipal officials responsible for reviewing municipal services. “You have to get out of the structure in which you are currently if you want to survive. »
“If we maintain the current situation of 30 neighborhood stations on the island of Montreal, there will be a shortage of 250 police officers, he continued, in a virtual audience. Currently I am maintaining buildings and putting police in buildings […], when my police should be on the road. »