De Caire changes mind about leaving

(Updated)

Hamilton police chief Glenn De Caire has changed his mind about his future. After filing his retirement papers last year, De Caire now wants to take them back and stay on as chief.

The police chief says he put in for retirement last year for family and personal reasons, and because he’d done the job he was given when he arrived in Hamilton.

But he says he’s had so much support from the community that he wants to keep going: “The number one factor that has changed my mind is the work of our people and their commitment to the community and an outpouring of support from the community.”

De Caire came to Hamilton in 2009 from the Toronto Police. Since then, violent crime in Hamilton has gone down significantly.

And City Councillor Lloyd Ferguson, who’s head of the Police Services Board that will decide on De Caire’s future, says the chief has done a good job: “We’ve made some good progress under his watch. There’s some issues, he’d had some political acumen issues, but we can work through those.”

De Caire’s decision to try to stay on as chief is not a surprise at city hall.

Councillor Chad Collins, also a police board member, says he’s not comfortable with the drama and lobbying over the chief staying on: “Of all the positions in the city that you’d like to have the least amount of politics associated with its the chief of police and what we’ve seen over the last several weeks is the politicization of the position itself and the whole issue of whether or not the chief is staying or leaving.”

Fellow councillor and police board member Terry Whitehead, who had a run-in with De Caire when the chief demanded a formal apology for an accusation of lying, says he’s staying open minded: “I should not dispel the past. I also have to look in the future and determine what’s in the best interests of the city.”

On the streets, opinion is divided.

“Once you make a deicsion you should stay by your conviction.”

“If people think he did a good and people are ok with him continuing on as police chief, I dont see why there should be a problem.”

The decision on whether the chief can stay will be taken up Monday night by the police board. Chair Lloyd Ferguson says they could ask him to stay, or they could tell him he can reapply for the job like anyone else. Councillor Collins says the city has already spent more than 20 thousand dollars looking for a new chief. Ferguson says that money can be shifted to the search for a deputy chief, with one of those jobs open.