The Edmonton Police Commission’s upcoming slate of public meetings won’t be very public.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the commission announced that Sept. 17, Oct. 22 and Nov. 19 meetings will be available via Zoom, but won’t feature public speakers. These will be virtual meetings, bringing back memories of COVID lockdown times.<\/p>\n
The reason? The July meeting was heated,<\/a> with speakers calling for Chief Warren Driechel to be fired. There is still lingering debate over Driechel’s decision to visit Israel in February, though he had signed an agreement with the U.S.-based Major Cities Chiefs Association to avoid political discussions during his time there.<\/p>\n “Discourse surrounding the Commission has moved far beyond legitimate criticism of the board, police governance or oversight,” reads a Wednesday statement from the Commission. “It has devolved into personal attacks, defamation, threats and intimidation directed at Commissioners, police service members, staff, and other members of the public. These actions are damaging, harmful and personal. They do not represent constructive public dialogue or a safe work environment, and they will no longer be tolerated.<\/p>\n “The Commission cannot stand by while individuals engage in actions and behaviour that seek to purposefully intimidate public servants or individuals and communities who do not share their views on topics that are not within the mandate of the board. Public feedback was abusive and insulting over several months, and as a result, the Input from the Public item been removed from future public meeting agendas. The Commission will continue to accept written correspondence from the public that is related to the board’s mandate only.”<\/p>\n The Commission said it hopes the closed-door policy will be “temporary” and will revisit the topic before the new year.<\/p>\n The July meeting saw the Commission discuss the use of facial-recognition technology, which could be coupled with the body cameras already in use by officers. Those body cameras are made by American security giant Axon, which in 2025 acquired Israeli emergency-platform tech giant Carbyne for US $625 million.<\/p>\n Eric Rosen, the former chief financial officer at Carbyne, said the deal between the two companies “is a defining moment for the 911 ecosystem. By joining forces, Carbyne’s cloud-native platform and Axon’s public safety network are set to transform how first responders protect our communities.”<\/p>\n One speaker, Carly Perkins, was led out of the Commission’s meeting at City Hall in July after saying: “As the chief visited Israel and even had the pleasure of meeting with you-know-who’s private security forces, we’re not going to forget about this trip, Driechel.”<\/p>\n ssandor@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a><\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Edmonton Police Commission’s upcoming slate of public meetings won’t be very public. On Wednesday, the commission announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[60819,60818,1772,60817,52,1790,35735,50947,60816,58635,1792],"class_list":["post-193693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-carbyne","tag-commission","tag-david-bloom","tag-driechel","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-police-service","tag-edmonton-sun","tag-the-edmonton-journal","tag-the-edmonton-police-commissions","tag-the-edmonton-sun","tag-warren-driechel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}