Bangladeshi Leaders Partner With Police

Toronto Police and leaders in the city’s Bangladeshi community formally met for the first time earlier this month.

“This was a meet-and-greet and sort of an ice-breaker,” said Inspector Dave Rydzik. “We want to start establishing relationships and partnerships and break down some of the misconceptions about policing. In talking with the leaders, we gathered that policing in Bangladesh and Toronto is not the same.”

Rydzik said that encouraging community participation with police is not the norm in all countries and the Toronto Police are always eager to encourage partnerships in all communities.

“We want to start having that conversation that we are different and have the Bangladeshi leaders take that back to the community,” he said. “This was just another avenue for outreach.”

During the meeting, the Bangladeshi leaders were introduced to the South and West Asian Consultative Committee, who meet with police leaders regularly to address community concerns and work together on outreach initiatives.

“There were some representatives from the committee there and they had some good dialogue with about 60 to 70 Bangladeshi leaders,” said Rydzik.

Constable Johnny Bobbili of the Divisional Policing Support Unit organized the event.