Shaun Wright calls it a day as PG RCMP Superintendent (Part 1)

For the second time in over five years, the Prince George RCMP will be looking for a new Superintendent.

Today (Thursday) is the last day on the job for Shaun Wright as PG’s top cop a role he has filled since the Summer of 2019 after taking over for Warren Brown who moved over to run the North District detachment.

During his final interview with Vista Radio, Wright admitted it’s been an eventful tenure to say the least dealing with everything under the sun.

The first major event occurred following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A pair of Black Lives Matter protests were held in PG during June of 2020– the first one, saw several hundred people take to the steps of city hall.

While Wright admits police tensions have gone down in recent years, there always be a section of the population who will think poorly of police.

“The anti-police protests coming out of Minneapolis, a lot of that seeped into society and up here north of the border and on social media. It was an extremely taxing time for my members.”

“I don’t think we are seeing quite the same backlash as we saw at the start of it but I would say in certain parts of the population, it still very much exists and I think it has emboldened them to legitimize the idea that they don’t have to recognize the authority of police and not comply with us.”

Prince George Mounties were put to the test during Wright’s tenure as Superintendent.

This included investigating targeted shootings and other infractions related to the drug trade and gang conflict, social issues centred in the downtown core including the Lower Patricia encampment as well as a fluctuating number of homicides from year-to-year.

Through the first four months of 2024, the northern capital tallied six murders: Prince George had eight last year.

Wright also pointed to the Econolodge Fire and last summer’s downtown explosion as two files where he was proud of the officer’s response and the subsequent investigations that followed.

However, police didn’t get the result they were looking for during the Econolodge trial.

“It was an excellent investigation for the members of this detachment. It went to trial, there wasn’t a conviction on it and I disagreed with some of the conclusions that were drawn but I am not the trier of fact. There is nothing more we could have done or any further evidence we could have gathered.”

“I was really disappointed with the end result.”

In terms of the downtown explosion, it was determined by police in September of 2023 that a suspected copper pipe theft contributed to the explosion.

Nine buildings had windows blown out during the August 2023 incident while UNBC’s Wood Innovation Lab and Heart Breakers night club were forced to close for periods of time.

Heartbreakers is set to reopen for the first time since the incident tomorrow (Friday).

The explosion resulted in city worker Victoria McGivern being airlifted to hospital in Vancouver, where she was later released. A Go Fund Me aiding in her recovery raised over $85,000.

Wright also didn’t pull any punches on BC’s failed drug decimalization project, which went into effect in January of 2023 but was abruptly halted by the province in May where it banned the use of such substances in public places once again.

“In my personal opinion, it was one of the greatest public policy disasters that I have seen in my lifetime and it’s going to take us years to unwind the effects of that year.”

“We had to adapt a lot of our investigative strategies to that experiment. It was very difficult and led to a proliferation of open drug trafficking in the downtown core, much more than what we had previously,” added Wright.

During his time as Superintendent, Wright advocated for more officers and resources like looking into the feasibility of expanding the Car 60 program with Northern Health along with the desire to see a Northern BC Integrated Homicide Team (proposed in 2021) and an Independent Investigations Office in our region.

While Wright didn’t hit a home run for every item on his wish list, he believes the detachment has a few more tools to work with.

One of those improvements is an increased presence in the downtown core.

“That has given us the capacity to not run around and put band aids on things with our front-line officers – that allowed us to increase our downtown safety unit as well as add a couple position to focus on repeat violent offenders, which has been quite successful for us.

“It’s given us the ability to start up our problem-oriented policing teams so we can focus on the re-occurring issues our frontline members don’t have the time to deal with.”

“Expanding Car 60 didn’t have the result I had hoped for. We had some preliminary discussions with Northern Health and their resource constraints and other issues prevented the program from expanding where I would like to see it go.”

As for a dedicated regional homicide team, Wright believes that possibility is a little further down the road.

“I do think you will see that sometime – maybe in the next 10-15 years. It takes a lot of work not just on the policing side but also on the political side behind the scenes. Government moves slowly.”

Wright added the implementation of body cameras in PG has been moved up to October instead of the start of 2025 as previously reported by MyPGNow.com

Inspector Darren Rappel will act as the officer in charge until a replacement is found.

Part 2 of the interview will be published on Friday.