It was a North Battleford council meeting, but a community 500 kilometres to the north was on everyone’s minds Monday.
“I think it would be appropriate to remember the tragic events of last week and take a moment to reflect and to remember those who are impacted, the lives lost and the families broken, and a community that’s broken,” said Mayor Ian Hamilton at the start of the meeting.
The mayor was referring to the shooting tragedy in La Loche last Friday in which four people were killed, two at a home and two at La Loche Community School.
All of those in council chambers stood for a moment of silence at the beginning of the meeting.
Hamilton added flags at City Hall were flying at half-mast for a 24-hour period.
The tragedy in La Loche was also on the minds of those involved with public safety in North Battleford.
Both Community Safety Co-ordinator Herb Sutton and RCMP S/Sgt. Darcy Woolfitt spoke of the La Loche tragedy during their presentations at the meeting.
It was obvious from their remarks that they wanted to address an important concern for everyone in council that evening, trying to make sure that no similar incident happened here.
Sutton did point to some safeguards currently in place.
“The two school divisions, the city, the RCMP, all the human service agencies have been working very hard in this community around violent threat risk assessment,” said Sutton.
He noted the City had been working with Kevin Cameron, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response, and many in the community have had two levels of training with him on violent threat risk assessment.
The training is designed for all front-line people to “try to recognize significant signposts along the way that could potentially prevent something like what happened in La Loche,” said Sutton.
The idea is for inter-agencies working together with people who are trained to recognize the signs. Then if they see something, they gather together and collaborate.
It sounds a lot like HUB, said Sutton, referring to the community-safety model currently in place in North Battleford in which agencies work closely together. Here, the agencies share the information as necessary and then try to prevent an incident from occurring.
Sutton tried to reassure residents that the community could prevent a similar tragedy to La Loche
“I’m guessing there’s a lot of people in the community wondering if it could happen in La Loche, could it happen in North Battleford?” said Sutton.
“For sure it can. And this is not 100 per cent, but I think we’re moving in the right direction.”
Woolfitt noted he had been posted to La Loche for two years, and said he had spoken Sunday to the MP from that area, Georgina Jolibois, about the situation.
“I understand the challenges the community there has, but I also understand the people that live there and the pride that they have in the community, and the strength that they have to deal with this situation.”
In the Battlefords, he noted the RCMP has been working for three to four years bringing in programs for their own police officers. He pointed to the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment program that has run at area schools, with training weekends held for police officers. Officers are trained in how to deal with incidents and critical situations, including how to enter buildings and what to do when those situations occur.
“With that training we’re equipping those police officers with the abilities to effectively deal with those situations,” said Woolfitt.
He said he also made a presentation in August of last year at St. Vital School about the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment, to more than 300 teachers.
“That is at the forefront of our mind and we do train for it and we do have those training courses in the Battlefords,” said Woolfitt.
