Victoria Police Chief Del Manak is “appalled” by a new draft policy from the Greater Victoria School District designed to cope with “violence, racially derogatory language or otherwise abusive treatment” of students by police.

The policy was introduced as a high priority item by school board chair Nicole Duncan last week. It includes a provision to keep students “safe from the use of strip searches at schools.”

Manak raised the issue at Tuesday’s Victoria and Esquimalt Police Board meeting, saying the language is misleading, accusatory and unfair to Victoria Police Department members.

The school district already has a 50-year-old policy discouraging police interrogations on school grounds. Manak said it would be worthwhile to update it, but the startling specifics show the school board is “trying to come up with a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Insp. Colin Brown was baffled at where the clause on strip searches comes from. He said that in 30 years of policing, “I’ve never heard of police engaging in a strip search on school ­property.”

“It would be highly inappropriate. … Suggesting that in a policy just appears to be a real disconnect.”

A Supreme Court of........

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