Malcom Mcllennan

Captain Malcom MacLennan was one of Vancouvers first chief constables. Now a massive operation with over thousands of employees, when MacLennan started as a chief constable, the force would have consisted of only around thirty men. This small band was far from enough to police a rapidly growing city of twenty-five thousand, at least that would be so if they had conventional working hours. But the first policemen of Vancouver didn’t, and they were expected to work seven days a week. MacLennen was quick to change this, striking a deal with the police commission to grant his boys two days off a month and a pay raise. Ever the progressive, MacLennen was the first Chief to hire a visible minority. Additionally he lobbied, for the therapeutic treatments of drug addicts, rather than branding them as criminals.

Maclennens long sixteen years as police chief was cut short when, on March 20th 1917, he was called in from his son’s 10th birthday party to deal with a violent cocaine addict brandishing a shotgun and refusing to pay his landlord for rent. After leading the charge into the storming of the suspect’s apartment he was shot. A small mosaic can be found on the street in his memory.

Bibliography

“Fallen Officers: Malcom Maclennan”. Vancouver Police Museum. Retrived from: https://vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/fallenofficers/malcolm_maclennan.htm

“History of the VPD.” Vancouver’s Police History. Retrived from: http://vancouver.ca/police/about/history/