Unmarked police cars make up just seven per cent of the Calgary Police fleet, but are responsible for 36 per cent of the vehicles involved in collisions, according to documents obtained through freedom of information requests.
In a statement, Calgary Police spokesperson Michael Nunn said that unmarked vehicles are often placed in higher-risk scenarios.
“This includes K9 and our Tactical Team who would generally be responsible for high risk vehicle stops and for boxing in vehicles to prevent harm to the public,” said Nunn.
But statistics show that just nine per cent of unmarked police vehicles in collisions were making intentional contact, boxing or pinning a suspect vehicle or were rammed by a suspect.
Fifty-eight per cent of unmarked vehicles in collisions were preventable, according to CPS documents.
There have been close calls before. Last February, an unmarked police van doing surveillance on Blackfoot trail was driving more than 80 kilometres per hour with five other officers inside when it went through a yellow light and collided with a pickup truck trying to make a left-hand turn. Two officers inside were seriously injured.
In that case, the officer was found at fault, but was not suspended or re-trained.
In other cities, collisions involving unmarked police cars have been deadly. In February 2014, a police officer in St. Hubert, Que. collided with another car killing five-year-old Nicholas Thorne-Belance. The officer was doing surveillance in an unmarked car at the time and driving more than twice the speed limit. He’s now been charged with dangerous driving causing death.
In March 2012, Edmonton Police officer Const. Chris Luimes was driving almost twice the speed limit when his unmarked car slammed into 84-year old Anne Walden’s car. Walden was killed.
Luimes was charged in the case, but ultimately found not guilty.
“I don’t feel she got any justification for her death at all,” said Walden’s friend Naydene Gibson. Gibson thinks police officers have too much free-range to break the law. “There has to be parameters set. Somebody has to be thinking of this.”
In an interview in March, Calgary Police spokesperson Kevin Brookwell acknowledged the risk.
“Is it a tragedy waiting to happen? I would be foolish to sit here and say that knowing it’s happened everywhere else, it will never happen here,” said Brookwell.
In total, 596 marked and unmarked Calgary Police vehicles were involved in collisions between January 1, 2014 and July 14, 2015. According to police documents, the cost to fix all of those vehicles was $937,455. Of that, $436,584 went to repair the unmarked patrol cars.
That includes 24 instances when cruisers collided with other police cars, sometimes in the CPS parking lot.
It does not include the cost of repairing private vehicles that police collide with, nor does it include the cost of cash settlements for injuries.
The Calgary Police could not provide the cost of those expenses. The Calgary Police Service is self-insured, meaning any repair costs billed to police are passed onto taxpayers.
