Barrage against the disarmament of the Lausanne police

For Lausanne Green municipal councilor Ilias Pachard, it is because police officers carry a weapon that this can create tensions during interventions, rather than calming things down. He is thinking in particular of the local police, who are walking down the street with a gun in his belt. And since many of the officers’ missions do not require the use of a firearm, he submitted a postulate entitled: “Pilot project for community policing without firearms.”

“You cannot know in advance what situation you are going to intervene in. You cannot know if the domestic violence for which you are called will not lead to a crisis situation, with people who arm themselves improvised, or who are in possession of weapons” tried to explain the municipal security Pierre-Antoine Hildbrand, Tuesday during the municipal council. In vain, the postulate was accepted, with the left supporting it. The ball is now in the Municipality’s court, wrote “24 Heures”. The bullet yes, but without the weapon?

What is certain is that even if the project has not yet come to fruition, by far not, it is causing people to react. In particular the Conference of Directors and the Association of Vaud Communal Police Officers, which published a press release on January 17, “surprised by the content of the study proposal adopted by the Lausanne Municipal Council”. And the term is weak.

For these two entities, the idea of ​​disarming police officers in the street is “out of step with the reality on the ground”. They explain that a firearm is “pulled from its holster, fortunately, only very rarely, knowing that in a conflict situation, police officers first use words, and a bodycam when it is carried by the officer involved. If it is necessary to use a means of restraint (pepper spray, tactical stick) when a situation escalates, proportionality is always at the center of the assessment. And when the legal framework is given and proportionality requires it, the use of the weapon can prove decisive both for the protection of the population and that of the police.

There is therefore no question of laying down your arms. “In the current context, it is unimaginable, with regard to the law and the proper functioning of the entire Vaud police organization, to see a police force working without weapons to accomplish its sovereign missions.”