Important redeployment of staff for the Montreal Police

The director of the SPVM, Sylvain Caron, will announce and outline the restructuring plan to the 120 or so executives of the police organization this morning during a meeting in Montreal.
DANIEL RENAUD
The Press
In order to allocate resources to “where the need is most felt,” the director of the Police Department of the City of Montreal (SPVM), Sylvain Caron, will today announce to his 4000 police officers a major redeployment of ‘workforce,.
This restructuring, called “Strategic Operational Repositioning”, includes the creation of a full team of investigators devoted exclusively to resolving unresolved murders, a significant addition to the sexual assault division and fight against sexual exploitation, and the return of drug investigation sections under the auspices of the Organized Crime Division.
“Crime is changing and we want to put resources where they will be optimal,” a police source told La Presse.
The director of the SPVM, Sylvain Caron, flanked by his assistant directors, will announce and outline its plan to the 120 or so executives of the police organization this morning during a meeting in Montreal. They will then meet their troops to explain what the redeployment is.
This announcement is in line with the changes initiated by the previous acting director of the Montreal Police, Martin Prud’homme, before returning to the head of the Sûreté du Québec at the end of last year.
During a media tour that followed his appointment as director last December, Mr. Caron began to unveil the deployment and the eventual addition of manpower, where the need was greatest, including sexual assault.
According to our information, this section, and that of the fight against sexual exploitation, should accommodate at least fifteen additional investigators, in particular to ensure better coordination with the national sex offender registry, meet the growing demand found in the stride of the #moiaussi movement and the Rozon and Salvail cases, and provide better service to members of Aboriginal communities who are victims of sexual exploitation.
Unresolved Murders
There are currently about 800 unresolved murders in the files of investigators of the SPVM, accumulated for decades.
Until a few years ago, a handful of investigators were still assigned exclusively to cold cases, but they retired. Currently, homicide investigators also handle unresolved murders.
The SPVM leadership is thus imitating the Sûreté du Québec – which has several investigators assigned to unresolved murders – and is creating a new, complete team of six investigators and a detective lieutenant to tackle these cases.
This announcement responds to a growing need and comes just days after the brother of a murdered woman whose murder has still not been resolved, John Allore, lamented to La Presse that cold cases were virtually unpublicized on the SPVM website. It should also be noted that constant technological breakthroughs can, in some cases, increase the chances of resolution.
The return of the “Stups”
While the SPVM did away a few years ago the sections assigned to “narcotics” to merge into a section renamed Violence Crimes in the four regions of the island of Montreal, La Presse learned that the squads fighting against the drugs will be resuscitated and placed under the auspices of the Organized Crime Division (OCD), which will now include several teams consisting of five detective lieutenants and more than 60 detective sergeants and investigating officers. However, physically, the offices of the drug investigators will remain in the operational centers of the four regions.
Finally, according to what we have been able to learn, the remaining sections in the four SPVM regions could be merged and staff would be moved to the neighborhood stations, so as to have more resources
These changes, which should come into force in the coming weeks, could lead to the disappearance of some positions, commanders among others.
“One thing is certain, nobody will be unemployed tomorrow morning,” said our source.