Police chief: Blame me if big budget doesn't make London better (2024)

After securing a record-setting budget and expanding his executive leadership team, London’s police chief says he’ll personally take the blame if his plan to overhaul policing in the city doesn’t make the community safer.

Chief Thai Truong took the helm of London police in June 2023 – the first time in 25 years an outsider was hired for the role – vowing to modernize the force and change the way it works.

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A leader should spend the first year getting familiar with the organization and the issues before making major changes, Truong said during a news conference this week announcing Hamilton police Supt. Treena MacSween as his third deputy chief.

“I have to make sure that the team and the infrastructure is in place before the community will start seeing the changes,” Truong said. “We have to make sure that this organization is a high-performing police service. We’re not there yet . . . but I’m so confident that we’re going to get there.”

Truong, the city’s youngest-ever police chief, has blamed years of underinvestment in the force for the challenges he inherited.

Police response times are increasing – it takes officers more than four days, on average, to respond to the least-pressing calls – and the city has the second-fewest officers per capita in the province. London has the third-highest rate of violent crime of Ontario big cities and nearly two-thirds of Londoners surveyed believe crime is increasing.

Truong has outlined top three priorities – building community trust, advancing organization wellness and increasing community safety – and said he’ll assign a deputy to oversee each one.

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His plan to modernize the force includes outfitting frontline officers and cruisers with cameras, using a digital evidence management system and other supporting technologies to streamline policing duties and free up officers. Hiring an additional 189 officers and civilian staffers over the next four years is already underway. Included in those hires will be more special constables, who will deployed in new ways, from guarding crime scenes to conducting proactive policing activities and administrative duties.

Other plans include expanding the foot patrol and other investigative units, re-establishing the community oriented response unit downtown and making city roads safer by cracking down on impaired driving and street racing.

“The changes that we are making within the organization to ultimately better this community are bold, they are extremely bold,” Truong said.

City council approved a massive four-year police budget, which will give London police $168 million annually from 2024 to 2027. The police board supports the chief.

“The London police service board is beyond confident that under the leadership of Chief Truong . . . that the new ambitious targets will be rapidly implemented including a new and modern service delivery model, which will ensure that Londoners see our city become a safer city now,” board member Ryan Gauss said.

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But the board also expect to see results, chair Ali Chahbar said.

“Yes, there will be some short-term changes that the board will be looking to in the next number of months, maybe a year. . . . We understand as a board the gravity and the magnitude of what accompanies this budget that was just passed,” Chahbar said.

“The board, exercising our oversight function over the next year, two years, three years, four years, we’re going to be on the service, we’re going to be on the chief, the deputy chiefs, to show us exactly how these results are being delivered.”

Both Chahbar and Truong described a feeling of excitement that has rippled through the force’s nearly 900 officers and civilian employees in recent months.

Truong, who is widely seen as a rising star in Ontario’s law enforcement community and has a reputation for working grueling hours, vowed to shoulder the blame if he can’t deliver on his promised changes.

“I have the utmost confidence that we are going to make this city safe and this community safe,” he said. “And if we don’t it will be because of me, but I’m so confident that we will.”

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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