Should Toronto police have horses? $5.9 million budget shines spotlight on pricey mounted unit

Some North American police services have disbanded their mounted units in recent years, or turned to private donors to cover the cost.

Thestar.com
Jan. 11, 2022
Wendy Gillis

At 135 years old, it’s the longest-running unit in the Toronto Police Service -- a team based out of a stable, not a station, and staffed by two- and four-legged employees alike.

And this year, Toronto’s mounted unit and its 24 horses will cost taxpayers $5.9 million, if the police force’s latest budget request is approved. The bulk of the money is earmarked for the salaries of more than three dozen uniform officers, with $120,000 set aside for animal supplies.

Amid budget shortfalls, the changing demands of modern policing and calls to defund police, some North American police services have disbanded their mounted units in recent years, or turned to private donors to cover the cost.

As the Toronto police board this week debates the force’s 2022 budget request, some are wondering if Toronto, too, should consider putting its mounted unit out to pasture. Others defend it, saying it’s as critical as ever for public safety, especially in one of North America’s largest cities where protests and parades fill the streets.

But with a 2022 budget request totalling $1.1 billion, up $25 million from last year, critics say savings need to be found wherever they can.

“Anything they can do to reduce the budget is good, including the mounted unit,” said John Sewell, member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition.

“It’s a superfluous expense,” said Sandy Hudson, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Toronto chapter.

Among the most common criticisms of mounted units: they’re more nostalgia than necessity, trotted out for community relations far more often than crowd control. In a November column calling for the closure of that city’s mounted unit, Hamilton Spectator columnist Susan Clairmont called the city police’s horses “little more than a highly Instagrammable public relations unit.”

In Toronto, another byproduct of the mounted unit is frequently photographed, too, for less picture-perfect reasons: the horse poop citizens say is too often left in the city’s bike lanes and streets.

“I’m not exactly sure what the rationale is to continue having mounted units in the 21st century,” said Kevin Walby, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg who researches policing and security, adding that horses hearken back “to prior decades or centuries of policing.”

Toronto police spokesperson Connie Osborne said its mounted unit serves an “integral part in both proactive and reactive policing,” with both officers and horses trained to respond to a variety of critical situations.

That includes crowd control in large sporting events and demonstrations, during searches for missing people or wanted felons, or for targeting crime hot spots with visible patrols, she said. The unit also responds to “hundreds” of radio calls, proactively patrols, and assists with planned operations, she said.

The tradition of horse-mounted police officers stems from 18th-century London and has served a variety of functional and ceremonial purposes in forces ever since, said Mitchel Roth, a law enforcement historian at Sam Houston State University in Texas. But budget restraints and technological advances, including the police car, have “pushed them out of the main parts of policing,” he said.

American cities that have disbanded their mounted forces in the last decade include Boston and, more recently, Baltimore; in 2020, the Las Vegas police department reportedly blamed budget shortfalls related to COVID-19 for its mounted unit closure. Closer to home, Kingston police cited the pandemic-related budget woes, too, when it axed its unit in favour of hiring new officers, prompting a community fundraiser to keep mounted police on the beat.

In addition to cost, mounted units can draw controversy, Roth said. In 2020 in Texas, a video of a mounted police officer leading a handcuffed Black man evoked harmful images of slave-catching, prompting an apology from the police department and, as the Washington Post reported, a lawsuit.

But, Roth says, mounted police still serve a vital function, including for visibility and crowd control. In certain situations one mounted officer can be more effective than 10 regular cops, Roth said.

“There’s a certain intimidation factor. These horses are, you know, are close to 2,000 pounds. And then you put a big cop on top of that,” he said.

In 2021, the unit was called to more than 80 crowd-control incidents to help de-escalate and manage crowds, Osborne said. Last year, the unit helped in a dynamic situation where a man who had been “randomly assaulting people” tried to flee from police in a cab. The mounted unit used horses to block the cab and the man was successfully arrested, she said. They also helped trace and arrest someone wanted for attempted murder.

“They are used every single day and are crucial in ensuring officer safety as well as public safety,” Osborne said of the horses.

Among the reasons cited by Toronto police Chief James Ramer for needing a $25-million budget increase was to staff the force’s “Vision Zero” team -- a specialized unit dedicated to traffic law enforcement to increase road safety. The team is currently 18 officers, less than half of the number of uniform officers dedicated to the mounted unit.

Asked how police determined the size of the mounted unit, Osborne said the numbers fluctuate and the size considers shift patterns, vacation and illness in order to “provide an essential response and to remain operationally viable.”

Christian Leuprecht, a Queen’s University and Royal Military College of Canada political science professor who studies policing, said the right question may not be whether the mounted unit is necessary. What’s more important, he said, is whether the unit’s effectiveness is being measured, and how that fits into the broader goals of the police service.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s a relatively small amount of money and relatively few resources, especially for a service the size of Toronto’s,” Leuprecht said.

“But it’s indicative of all the resourcing for police: how many resources do police really need to fulfil their mandate?”

The Toronto police board is scheduled to discuss the police force’s budget request Tuesday.