British Columbia”No one likes to get a parking ticket,” City of Vancouver chief safety officer Magnus Enfeldt said. “But everyone deserves the right to go to work and not be afraid of being assaulted while doing their job.”15 parking officers will wear body cameras for 6 months to deter abuse, city saysCourtney Dickson · CBC News · Posted: Jul 23, 2025 3:12 PM EDT | Last Updated: July 23A City of Vancouver parking enforcement officer checks a vehicle in the 800 block of Homer Street in Yaletown. The city says it is equipping some officers with body cameras in hopes of deterring a rising number of assaults against them. (Rafferty Baker/CBC)Fifteen parking enforcement officers in Vancouver will start wearing body cameras next month in response to what the city says is a high level of physical and verbal abuse from the public. The body cameras are a six-month pilot project that aims to deter violence. The city says there were 24 physical assaults on officers in 2024, 25 threats and 42 reports of verbal abuse. This year, up until the end of June, there have been 13 physical assaults, five threats and 21 incidents of verbal abuse. The true number may be higher, the city says, as staff tend not to report every incident of verbal abuse and harassment because it happens so often.”We see a myriad of different levels of violence and assault towards parking enforcement officers,” Om Mogerman, the associate director of parking operations with the City of Vancouver, told CBC’s On The Coast guest host Amy Bell.”The vast majority are verbal harassment, threats, bullying type behaviour, however, we do see physical violence towards our staff fairly regularly.”It’s gotten so bad, he said, they’ve started bringing in trauma counsellors once a week to meet with staff. City of Vancouver chief safety officer Magnus Enfeldt said the violence got to a point where the city had to do something to protect the parking officers.”No one likes to get a parking ticket, but everyone deserves the right to go to work and not be afraid of being assaulted while doing their job,” he said. WATCH | City officials explain parking officer body camera program: City of Vancouver wants to give parking attendants bodycamsStarting in August, 15 parking attendants in Vancouver will be wearing body cameras as part of a pilot project. Om Mogerman, associate director of parking operations, said the City of Vancouver was seeing its parking enforcement officers facing physical assaults every two weeks. Magnus Enfeldt, the city’s chief safety officer, said the footage from the cameras would only be stored in case a violent incident occurs, failing which it would be deleted in five days.The hope is that people will think twice before escalating during an interaction with a parking officer simply because the cameras exist. But if things do get to a point where an officer feels unsafe, they can turn their camera on. Enfeldt said each camera is activated when the parking officer goes out on shift and sits in buffering mode, recording on a continuous 30-second loop.If they feel their safety is at risk, they can activate the camera, let the person know they’re doing so, and the camera will start recording. It will include the interaction from the previous 30 seconds that were captured on that continuous loop, to show what led to the officer activating the camera.The cameras do not have facial recognition capabilities, according to the city. An Edmonton Police Service officer demonstrates a body camera. Fifteen parking enforcement officers in Vancouver will start wearing body cameras as part of a six-month pilot project. (Manuel Carrillos Avalos/CBC)If violence does occur, the parking officer would then call police to report it. If the police require the footage from the interaction for their investigation, the city will be able to provide it, Mogerman added. If recordings do not need to be investigated, they will be deleted within five days.After six months of testing, the city will re-evaluate to see if the cameras are a permanent measure that should be taken for all parking officers.While the project is primarily focused on physical safety, it’s also about mental well-being for parking officers, Mogerman said. “When we said we were doing a pilot, we had to turn people down that wanted to be involved. The majority of our staff want to participate,” he said. The city said there are 63 regular, full-time parking enforcement officers and 41 auxiliary officers. Fifteen are being trained to wear the body cameras. ABOUT THE AUTHORCourtney Dickson is an award-winning journalist based in Vancouver, B.C.With files from On The Coast
Vancouver parking enforcement to pilot body cams amid violence, threats against officers
