Regina's new police chief addresses challenges of past year, looks ahead to 2026

As 2025 came to a close, new Regina Police Service (RPS) Chief Lorilee Davies spoke to the Leader-Post about this past year and what’s to come in 2026.

The former deputy chief was promoted on an interim basis in April after now-former Chief Farooq Sheikh was removed from active duty. He was the subject of a complaint by a community member who also served at the time on the Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC), which is RPS’s civilian oversight body.

Sheikh joined RPS as chief in late 2023.

At the conclusion of an investigation in late October, it was announced that Sheikh had been fired with cause for “discreditable conduct” under the Municipal Police Discipline Regulations.

That ultimately led to Davies’ permanent promotion, making her Saskatchewan’s first female chief of police in early December.

(The following interview, conducted on Dec. 8, 2025, has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q: Do you believe the circumstances under which the previous chief left his role had an impact on public trust towards the police service? And if so, what will you do to address that impact?

A: I think anytime there’s that kind of swirl in the community, it causes concern for the community, right? Like, you know, me being outside of the police service, if I heard of some organization who the person at the top was involved in some sort of bad thing, it does lead you to question the legitimacy of the organization. I think that’s fair.

All my interactions in the community have, to date, proven otherwise, where people have said to me: “We have trust in the Regina Police Service, we believe in the work that your front-line people are doing and we appreciate that one certain situation doesn’t reflect on a whole organization.”

In saying that, I appreciate the best way to actually build trust and accountability is being present in the community. That is obviously very important to me, and that’ll be a big focus in 2026 is ensuring that not just me, but that we are engaged fully in the community. We can build that trust, or rebuild that trust.

I’ve heard the analogy of trust is like pennies in a piggy bank. Every little positive interaction builds up that bank account. But it only takes one thing to sort of smash that piggy bank open. It’s really important for us as a police service to be committed all the time to building trust with the community.

Q: You were recently promoted to your position as Regina’s new chief of police. In what way will your approach differ from that of your predecessor?

A: I think we’re coming at it from different starting points. I’ve been here at Regina Police Service for almost 30 years. I know the ins and outs of the organization. I know the ins and outs of this community. I know where we have work to do. And the members here know me. They’ve worked with me throughout my career. We’ve sat in a patrol car together, we’ve done interviews together. I think that’s the biggest piece for me.

Q: What presented the largest challenges to the police service in 2025 and what work has been done to overcome those challenges?

A: I think the trust piece that you’ve previously alluded to (has) probably been, I would say, our biggest challenge. For inside the building, I think just being in this uncertain situation — it kind of feels like we’ve had to maintain status quo throughout 2025, because we didn’t know what the outcome would be at the end of the day. Now, with this promotion, I think for myself, for the service, it’s like, “okay, let’s look forward to 2026, let’s figure out what our priorities are moving forward, and let’s just get to work.”

We’re 11 homicides to date, which obviously is a big increase over the previous year (six). I would say there isn’t a lot we can do preventively, specific to homicides. But our continued work with drug interdiction, with gang intervention, those are big pieces that we need to continue to ensure that we are holding people accountable.

If we’re thinking about homelessness, addictions, mental health issues, clearly over the last few years in our community we’ve seen those become an increasingly big issue. I think about the complex needs facility and how often we’re transporting people there, so that’s been a big resource for our community, and that really has been hand-in-hand with our downtown safety team and our increased presence downtown.

Q: What were the areas of greatest success for the police service in 2025?

A: I think downtown safety. Our additional investment with our alternative response officers (AROs) and then having what were formerly beat officers now assigned specifically to downtown. In January, we’re changing their shifting so they’re going to be downtown longer. And we’re hoping to be able to hire more AROs to be able to help supplement the number of officers we can have down there.

We did a bit of a pilot project with Arcola East, trying to find ways to engage with their community. I think that there’s some work that we can do on that front, looking forward to ’26 to say, “how can we better engage with community associations, with residents?”

The camera registry has been great in terms of having residents and businesses engage, registering their cameras with us so that if we have an incident in their area, we can know to reach out to them to see if they’ve captured it on their security cameras.

Q: You’ve taken on your position after a long line of men have done the job. Do you have any reflections to share about that and what it means for women?

A: For many young girls or young women, they don’t often see themselves in positions that have been, forever, non-traditional. Unfortunately, police chief is one of those roles. Any time we can have female leaders in our community who are breaking barriers, I hope for young girls and women that they feel like, “Hey, this dream that I have maybe isn’t so crazy, and maybe it’s something that I can pursue as well.”

I always say that any time you can add diversity around a board table, when you’re making important decisions for your community, it’s for the better.

I’m hoping that I’m bringing something else to the table that maybe hasn’t been considered or thought about. In a time of complex issues, we really need to think outside the box.

bharder@postmedia.com

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