The new Detachment Commander with the Battlefords RCMP met North Battleford's city councillors Monday night.
S/Sgt. Phil Wilson began his duties with the Battlefords RCMP just one week before. Monday's regular municipal services meeting was his first opportunity to meet the councillors and provide the May policing report.
Wilson comes to the Battlefords after spending 30 years in various capacities with the RCMP, all in Alberta. However, he is originally from Saskatchewan and happy to be back in his home province.
He said he has been posted in some "busy spots and some quiet spots in Alberta." He anticipates the Battlefords will be his last stop before he retires .
It wasn't great news he had to report Monday as crime in several categories remains up for the year, although the general calls for service have declined.
The categories showing increases so far in 2010 include person offences, to 589 from 274; business break and enters up to 21 from 11; residential break and enters were up to 74 from 37; criminal code offences were up to 712 from 653; and drug offences were up to 43 from 30. Property offences were down slightly for the year from 907 to 813.
May, however, has been a better month compared to 2009 statistics-wise, with drops coming in most categories.
In May 2010, person offences showed the biggest spike to 72 from 48 the previous year. Business break and enters were also up to seven from three the year before.
However, residential break and enters declined from 20 to nine, a welcome drop after several months of spikes in that category.
Property offences were also down from 238 to 218, as were criminal code offences from 168 to 138. Drug offences dropped from 8 to 5, liquor act offences were down from 69 to 22, and motor vehicle collisions were down from 27 to 11.
There were 150 provincial traffic offences recorded for the month as well as 25 counts for impaired operation of a motor vehicle.
Calls for service overall this year are at 1036, down from 1375 the previous year. A continuing concern, however, has been the amount of that total made up of false alarms.
There were 96 false alarms in May compared to 67 last year. For the year, false alarms are up to 422 from 299.
False alarms were the main concern councillors expressed in their questions to Wilson. Councillors again wanted to know the reason behind the spikes in false alarms during May and April.
Councillor Grace Lang asked if this was a case of alarm companies calling in false alarms and wondered about the source of the calls, whether it was businesses or individuals phoning in.
Wilson said he believed it was a combination, and also said the detachment was planning to put in place a protocol to do more tracking of such calls. He told council it was expected there would be better data on alarm orgination as a result. He said with false alarms "it's really really hard to tell where the problem is," noting some alarms are more sensitive than others.
Councillor Don Buglas commented the false alarms were a "time waster" taking time away from policing needed in other areas.
Buglas also wanted to know who was counted as "youth" in the RCMP statistics. Wilson confirmed youth are identified as between 12 and 18. Those under 12 are classified as a "child" and cannot be arrested or charged, Wilson said, so they are not counted in the statistics. The cases involving children under 12 are either referred to child services or to their parents.
