RCMP officers across the province were busy New Year's Eve and Yorkton was no exception.
"It was busier than a normal night, but not overly," said Cpl. Donald Dyker of the municipal detachment.
But, while the detachment experienced a higher volume of calls, individual officers did not necessarily see a bigger workload as they had more officers on duty in anticipation, he explained. He added that the types of calls were pretty typical with assorted fights, individuals intoxicated in public, impaired driving, mischief and complaints of loud parties, which, in a couple of cases, led to charges for breaches of undertakings.
Local members responded to a total of 30 calls/occurrences on December 31 through New Year's Day and made a total of 10 arrests. Three of the calls were false or nuisance 911 calls.
While the municipal police were handling more calls, their counterparts in the Yorkton rural detachment had an easy night.
"It was relatively quiet," said Cpl. Tim Schwartz.
"The people we saw were driving the speed limit. We gave out one speeding ticket, but no impaired driving."
He said they did have a complaint about a party on Buckle Road where there may have potentially been drunk drivers, but found the hosts had a designated driver ferrying party-goers around.
"That's a good example of people being responsible," Schwartz said.
It is something that has changed even within the 13 years he has been with the force, he said, noting the turning point was around 2003 to 2005 when he was with the Fort Qu'Appelle detachment.
"I started to really notice, especially the younger people being responsible," he said.
Provincially, it was a very busy night, however. Saskatchewan RCMP decided they would post all their 911 calls on Twitter to give the public a taste of what they are up against on December 31 and raise awareness of the proper and improper use of the emergency phone line.
Many of the 181 calls for service were legitimate 911 calls involving assaults, stranded motorists, stolen vehicles and fireworks complaints. There were also frivolous calls, however. One person called to complain about bed bugs in his hotel room and another wanted to wish RCMP "Happy New Year."
The Mounties had to call off the Twitter experiment around 2 a.m. when they reached their maximum number of tweets.
