Here's how often, and why, London police use their light armoured vehicle

London police are increasingly using their light armoured vehicle (LAV) while they search homes and apartments for guns and drugs, new numbers obtained by CBC News show. 

In 2020, the service used the bulletproof vehicle six times. Three years later, that number jumped to 25 trips, and is on pace to surpass that in 2024, the data shows. 

"LAVs allow us to be up close and contain a residence when we believe there's an armed and barricaded person inside and that it's likely a firearm is involved," deputy police chief Trish McIntyre said. "We have seen a notable increase in gun crime, we see an increase in gun seizures, we see basically general volatility in the city going up.

But if London's police chief wants to increase safety and trust in the police, he'd be better off putting the $500,000 earmarked for the LAV into youth programs and other prevention projects, said Tarah Hodginson, a criminologist at Wilfrid Laurier University who specializes in crime prevention,community safety and police oversight. 

"From a general perspective, any of these vehicles outside of a military setting is just militarizing the police. It also creates this image that police are at war with their own community, and that's a really terrible way of setting up your police service," Hodgkinson said. 

"If they're really meant to be of the community and policing the community, then this is not going to do it." 

The service currently has one light armoured vehicle and 30 officers trained to drive it. Another will be purchased in 2026 after the $492,000 price tag was approved in the city's four-year budget. The vehicles have a life span of more than 15 years, police say.

London first used a light armoured vehicle in 2000, borrowed from the Ontario Provincial Police, during an 11-hour standoff in Pond Mills that included dozens of rounds of gunfire after a man broke into his father's gun cabinet. 

CBC News last requested LAV data from the London police service in 2018. Back then, the service had two LAVs, both 20 years old when they were donated in 2005 and 2011, by General Dynamics Land Systems. 

In the 12 years covered in the first freedom of information request, 2006 to 2018, the vehicles had been used for investigations 39 times. In the six years and three months covered under the more recent request, the LAV has been used 82 times. 

"Our goal with any type of emergency response is isolate, contain, evacuate. In simple terms, the vehicle, because of the protection it offers, allows us to be right up tight, right up close to contain any type of threat," McIntyre said. 

But it could also be that officers are using the LAV more often simply because they have it at their disposal, Hodgkinson said. "Has there been an increase in gun violence in the last couple of years across Ontario? Yes. But are armoured vehicles really our best defence against gun violence? You could take that $500,000 and invest it in youth prevention programs, and you would see a dollar-for-seven savings in terms of cops, courts, corrections, et cetera."