February 2010
Monthly Archive
Birdwatching the 2010 Olympics police
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 28 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Canada, meetings and conferences, Vancouver
As the cheers still resound outside my apartment, from the street party below, let me report on my own Olympic sport: police-spotting. It’s like bird watching, but for police agencies.
Some 118 different police agencies from across Canada came to the Vancouver area as part of the $900 million 2010 Olympics security effort. The RCMP sent over 4000 officers from provinces across Canada; various municipal police departments sent some 1700 more. (20% of Canada’s policing power was at the Olympics.) I figured it would be fun to say hello to a constable from every one of those agencies. I didn’t get to them all, but it was fun trying.