Belleville’s Police Chief says he wasn’t ducking questions from members of the public when he and other panellists left the city’s forum on mental health and policing Tuesday night.
Speaking to Quinte News on Wednesday morning, Chief Mike Callaghan says there may have been some miscommunication with event organizers, but there was never any plan for members of the public to be able to directly ask questions to the police service during Tuesday’s event.
It was meant to be more of an educational session for members of the public and council on what local police services and mental health agencies are doing to work with, and protect, people who find themselves in those situations.
That said, Callaghan says he’s more than happy to discuss issues that people have with the police service and steps are being taken to do that.
“I’ve directed my executive officer to reach out to some of the members involved in the call that wanted to speak with us and we would be more than glad to speak with them in person. Obviously we have the challenges of COVID right now, but we’ll ensure that we work around those in a timely response, to meet with those individuals and start a very constructive dialogue.”
The Chief added that he’d prefer to have those discussions in a more private, one-to-one setting, because open forums aren’t always the best way to exchange information back and forth.
“I would prefer to do it on an individual basis because when you get into a large open forum, the topics range so diversely that it’s really hard to be in a position to meaningfully answer the questions of those individuals. I’d be more than glad to meet with people. At the end of the day we want to make sure we’re making a meaningful difference to our community.”
Callaghan is encouraging anyone who’d like to voice concerns to contact Staff Sgt. Mike Kiley and steps will be taken to set up a meeting and have those concerns addressed.
Staff Sgt. Kiley can be reached by email at mkiley@police.belleville.on.ca, or by phone at 613-966-0882 ext. 4148.
