WATERLOO REGION POLICE CHIEF BRYAN LARKIN

Well! Peter Shawn Taylor in last Thursday's (Feb. 16/17) Waterloo Region Record really wrote a stunningly complimentary tribute to our current police chief. The title was "Lucky or good? Police Chief Bryan Larkin is both". I'm not going to disagree a whole lot with Mr. Taylor's comments and opinion in the matter. He backs them up pretty well with various anecdotes and facts. Clearly Chief Larkin has a much easier population (smaller) to police then say Toronto or Montreal. Also as per Mr. Taylor a more homogenous population with fewer very large populations of either aboriginals or Caribbean immigrant populations may make things significantly easier. Hmm. Is there just a tad of racism in that opinion of Mr. Taylor's? Mr. Taylor suggests that those two groups tend to find themselves "at odds with police in other Canadian cities.". I wonder if skin colour and socio-economic status may be as much factors with how police interact with these groups as the other way around?

Regardless Mr. Taylor also points out Chief Larkin's pro-active stance regarding the somewhat amazing 27% "unfounded" rate for sexual assault complaints in the Region. That is indeed to Chief Larkin's credit if he does take real action on the matter. Overall this article is such that I am rethinking various criticisms I've had both past and present. Could it be possible that our local regional councillors actually hired a progressive, up to date individual to run our regional police force? Time as usual will tell.