Losing is not an option when Vancouver police attend a violent incident, Const. Darren Hall told participants of a citizens' police academy.
Hall, VPD's primary control tactics instructor, explained police must resolve conflicts as quickly as possible by using the appropriate amount of force to match the level of risk presented by a subject or the situation can lead to further injury.
But, when police choose violence the optics are often ugly.
Critics ran Vancouver police through the wringer in August 2007 when an officer shot and killed Paul Boyd in South Granville after the deceased instigated an incident by assaulting two officers with a bicycle chain.
The Criminal Justice Branch found the force used was proportionate to the risk presented and cleared the officer who fired the fatal bullet.
Hall, not authorized to comment on the Boyd file, said though there can be no uniform response for dynamic violent incidents, all Vancouver officers adhere to a national use of force model to guide their decisions.
"Everyone can be the Monday morning quarterback," he said. "If the public understands the police officers are there to do a job and that sometimes, not often, but sometimes we have to use force to resolve a problem, that's part of what we do."
