LPS Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh (Screenshot from Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs on YouTube)

By Justin Goulet

LPS Chief addresses accountability, recent concerns during SACPA presentation

Mar 25, 2021 | 11:58 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The Lethbridge Police Service has been a hot topic of discussion as of late.

On Wednesday, it was noted that Alberta’s Justice Minister Kaycee Madu wrote to LPS Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh, Lethbridge Police Commission chairperson Robert Van Spronsen and Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman.

Madu expressed concerns with the operations at the Lethbridge Police Service.

READ MORE: Justice Minister threatens to use “extraordinary authorities” against LPS if reforms not made

Earlier this month, five LPS employees were suspended with pay as part of an internal investigation.

Nighttime construction on Hwy 3 in Lethbridge starts April 17

Apr 17, 2025

SASHA launches #BuyABed fundraiser to support vulnerable Lethbridge residents

Apr 04, 2025

$20K grants available: TELUS STORYHIVE Pan-Asian Edition opens applications April 1

Mar 18, 2025

READ MORE: Five LPS employees suspended with pay during internal investigation

On Thursday morning, Lethbridge Police Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh was the special guest speaker at the virtual meeting of the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs.

Mehdizadeh was sworn in as the new LPS Chief last August, replacing Rob Davis.

READ MORE: Incoming chief honoured and humbled to be joining LPS

READ MORE: New Police Chief takes charge of the Lethbridge Police Service

He discussed his journey to the LPS during his virtual talk, and some of the challenges the local police service has been facing as of late, including the recent criticism of the LPS.

“Employee wellness is critical for any organization to focus on and certainly, if you make it a challenge for the organization, it gets the attention it deserves,” he said.

“Building a culture of trust and respect – that’s critical and that’s some of the issues we’re dealing with today.”

He said not only is it important to build a culture of trust and respect within the organization, but one with members of the community.

Efficiencies were also cited as a difficulty for the LPS.

“There’s always pressure on police leaders to come up with more efficient ways to manage their business, to deliver the police service and keep the citizens happy,” Mehdizadeh said.

In December of last year, the City of Lethbridge’s 2021-2022 Operating Budget was approved. Included in the budget was a $1 million cut to the LPS budget. Last month, the LPS detailed some of the potential impacts that cut could have on the service.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Mehdizadeh said police work is “all about accountability”.

“We have to be accountable to our citizens,” he stated.

“In my department, as the Chief of Police, one word I would never use is ‘somebody working FOR me’. As the Chief of Police, I have that responsibility, but nobody works for me. Everybody here works for our citizens and I’ve made that very clear to the staff here.”

He said the goal is to ensure every employee at the LPS abides by that accountability, but when someone breaks the responsibilities police officers have, the LPS will make sure they’re held accountable.

“That’s critical because if we want to have public trust, we have to make sure we have an accountable and responsible organization and a lot of effort has been put into place the last few months to really send that message, and not only to send a message, but to also show through actions and processes in place [that] we mean what we say,” he said.

“We’ll continue to message that; trying to draw those lines in the sand that are very clearly marked and making sure people don’t go out of those lines. Again, public trust is a critical piece of delivering police services and that’s a huge priority.”

Mehdizadeh added that citizens also have a “critical role to play” in community safety.

“As they play their critical role and partnership, the police has that other piece of the critical role to make sure what we do operationally to reduce crime,” he said.

“We have to develop more trusting relationships [with citizens] so they talk to us and they bring us the issues that are going on in the community… if citizens don’t call us, we are not going to capture the intelligence we need to actually out the resources where we need to be. Those calls [from the public] are going to give us the opportunity to plan our operations better and make sure our efforts are going towards areas of concern to the citizens.”

Q&A

Mehdizadeh answered questions from attendees of the virtual meeting.

One asked if LPS has investigated how many other people, aside from MLA Shannon Phillips, have had their private information “used by LPS officers for personal or partisan reasons”.

READ MORE: LPS Chief defends integrity of service during MLA spying investigation

“First of all, we have no evidence at all that there’s been any partisan use for information. The [Shannon] Phillips investigation that was completed on two officers has to do with two people making a decision to paint outside of the line as far as our policies in elation to use of databases here, but no, we are not aware of anything like that at this time,” Mehdizadeh responded.

As previously mentioned, Justice Minister Kaycee Madu has raised concerns about the operations at LPS and has asked the service to draw up an action plan. Mehdizadeh addressed this during his presentation.

“We’ve been working on it diligently and in fact, every day, we keep coming up with more ideas. We just want to share with the Minister as to, these measures are not something that we have just created,” he said.

“We’ve had many efforts in the last few months that we’ve implemented and are already on the go.”

Mehdizadeh said the plan, which has been worked on for some time now, is being put into context for review by Minister Madu.

“This plan comes under many different pillars as we look at some of these initiatives that are already on the go,” he said.

“One is obviously ethics and accountability. That’s the most critical piece because we need to make sure those are solid, and it’s not that we don’t have policies, we just have to make sure that we have reminders of those components to every employee here.”

The second pillar is leadership development, and the third is employee wellness and mental health.

Database access was also listed as a big topic, with Mehdizadeh saying they need to ensure the proper use of databases at the LPS.

He added that communication is also a key.

“Really, the action plan encompasses those five pillars and initiatives under those and once we have it actually completed, presented to the minister, I’ll be more than happy to share that… and have more detailed discussions on that.”

Mehdizadeh was also asked if he was aware of some of the issues facing LPS before he accepted the position as Chief. He said he was, but one thing he did not expect was the pressure from the public.

“That’s my job to deal with that,” he commented.

“I know we have a great team to move forward and address some of these issues.”

Mehdizadeh’s presentation can be viewed in full below.

For local news delivered daily to your email inbox, subscribe for free to the Lethbridge News Now newsletter here. You can also download the Lethbridge News Now mobile app in the Google Play and the Apple App Stores.