RCMP Officers Off for Training

MOUNTIES SPENDING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON U.S. TRAINING SESSIONS

OTTAWA - The RCMP is preparing to spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars to send police officers to Phoenix for three weeks of
training where alcohol and drugs feature prominently and a bar is a
hotel requirement.

The Mounties are planning six workshops - each three weeks long - in
the sun-soaked Arizona city between April 2012 and March 2013 to
train a few hundred RCMP, provincial and municipal police officers
from across the country on recognizing and testing drug-impaired drivers.

Police say there's currently a dearth of officers in Canada with
expertise in spotting and catching drug-impaired drivers.

The RCMP, which administers the training of all Canadian police
officers on drug recognition, says Phoenix is the teaching hot spot
and best place to find high drivers in mass quantity.

The RCMP is calling for bids from hotels that can provide queen-or
king-sized beds for around 35 people for each three-week training session.

That will amount to 680 guest room nights for each workshop and a
total 4,080 room nights over the six sessions planned to be attended
in Phoenix.

Each workshop will include around 24 officers for training, six
certified instructors and four to six additional officers practising
to be instructors.

A couple of meeting rooms, including one with an on-site bar, are
also required for training purposes.

The force estimates the total hotel tab will range between $100,000
and $250,000, according to its request for proposals.

Sending more than 200 officers to Phoenix over the six training
sessions - with return flights from major Canadian cities ranging
from around $550 to $700 - will likely add at least another $100,000
to the total bill.

But RCMP officials say they're saving taxpayers potentially $120,000
by consolidating the training in one city this year.

"Bottom line is it's just cheaper to do it in Arizona than what we
can provide it for in Canada," RCMP Insp. Allan Lucier said yesterday
in an interview.

The training, which is led by Canadian police officials, involves a
two-week, in-classroom theoretical component followed by one week of
in-the-field teaching and certification.

In past years, the RCMP would fly in and house officers at a hotel in
a Canadian city for the two weeks of theoretical teaching, and then
head down to Phoenix for the field certification at the Maricopa
County Sheriff's Office.

But this year, the RCMP is hoping to save taxpayer cash by flying
police officers to one location in Phoenix for all three weeks of
training, therein avoiding separate flights to a Canadian city and
then on to Arizona as in past years, he said.

Lucier said the Arizona facility trains 85 per cent of all
drug-recognition experts in North America, partly because there's a
sufficient number of criminals to examine, so it makes sense to send
the officers to Phoenix - even though the training will be done by
Canadian officials.

"It's just the volume and the consistency of drug-impaired
individuals that the facility provides us that make it worthwhile for
us," Lucier said.

"What going to Arizona is allowing us to do is to put some control on
those costs."

The request for proposals calls for a main hotel meeting room that
can comfortably accommodate a U-shaped table for 24 people and a
minimum of 1,400 square feet of unobstructed space.

A secondary meeting room must comfortably seat 12 to 16 people and
have a bar that can be utilized on certain training days.

It must also have a washroom available or be in close proximity to one.

"The training course has three (3) alcohol correlation workshop
studies that are conducted during the training course. To do this, a
room where alcohol can be dispensed without a liquor license (sic) or
permit is required," says the request for proposals to potential bidders.

The hotel must also be located within about 24 kilometres of downtown
Phoenix, include an on-site restaurant and provide on-site fax and
copying service.

Lucier said the bar is necessary so officers can drink alcohol in a
controlled environment to learn how to differentiate or correlate
between alcohol and drug impairment.

Currently, there are fewer than 700 certified drug-recognition police
officers across this country, posing challenges for law-enforcement
officials to spot and ultimately arrest drug-impaired drivers.

Doug King, a criminologist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said
the taxpayer investment to train officers in Phoenix is probably
worthwhile because there's a lack of needed expertise in the area.
And he figures flights to Phoenix are cheaper than domestic
cross-country routes.

Recognizing drug impairment is often more difficult than alcohol
intoxication because the physiological signs are different for each
drug and they often don't leave a lingering, giveaway scent like
booze, he said.

"Increasingly, there's growing concern about drug impairment, both
legal and illegal," King said in an interview.

"It's appropriate that police officers get drug-impairment training."

Roadside surveys conducted in recent years by the Canadian Centre on
Substance Abuse have shown about as many drivers, if not more, test
positive for drug use as they do for drinking.

Yet, Statistics Canada data demonstrate the difficulty police have in
recognizing drug-impaired drivers.

In 2010, there were 78,257 reported incidents in Canada of
alcohol-impaired operation of a vehicle, vessel or aircraft.

But there were only 1,566 drug-impaired incidents, according to
Statistics Canada.

- - Postmedia News