Dissatisfaction over the city's high crime numbers has been made known to the local RCMP.
Acting detachment commander Sgt. Kurt Grabinsky, in his presentation of the Battlefords detachment statistical report for August Monday, acknowledged "the community has been expressing a lot of frustration through August as well as September with the crime statistics severity index, as well as the overall crime that has been happening in the community."
But he noted that in calls for service, "we are, on average, no greater than usual, but we are dealing with Facebook and social media which carries a lot of weight in the public."
Grabinsky said they have full respect for the information that comes from that and they investigate where we can, but "our calls for service are no greater than normal."
There were 1,293 calls for service in August overall, compared to 1,520 for the same month in 2012. For the year there have been 9,940 calls for service compared to 10,617 last year.
As for the rest of the report for August, there was not much change in the numbers in most categories. The only major uptick noted was in property offences that saw 305 in August, up from 259 the previous year.
Compared to the same month in 2012, in August there were person offences were at 76 (up two from August 2012), one business break and enter (down one), 20 residential break and enters (same), 224 Criminal Code offences (down 19), 22 drug offences (down 10) 25 Liquor Acts (down 19) and 28 impaired operation of a motor vehicle (up six).
As for trends for the year, person offenses are up four per cent, business break and enters up 33 per cent, residential break and enters up 23 per cent, property offences up 13 per cent, criminal code offences down 13 per cent, drug offences down 33 per cent, liquor acts offences up 20 per cent, and impaired operation of a motor vehicle up 15 per cent.
Grabinsky noted the RCMP has been interacting with different community groups over the recent property crime as well as the shootings.
He also noted bike patrols were active during the month and successful in locating and prosecution of people in places vehicle patrols don't normally travel.
While Grabinsky acknowledged the frustration over crime, Councillor Trent Houk relayed some different frustration over the traffic enforcement blitzes by police.
He said he received comments from residents asking "why are they over at Tim Hortons, Burger King, giving little old ladies a ticket when we should have these guys on at nighttime fighting real crime."
Grabinsky responded they have a dedicated traffic safety unit to ensure safety on the roads, targeting high collision zones where the greatest injury and costs come. What they are finding is the collisions are happening at intersections, where failure to stop at a stop sign or failure to stop at red lights to turn right happen.
"I do find it is important to be enforcing those traffic laws to make sure we are safe at intersections," said Grabinsky.
