The Battlefords detachment of the RCMP has bowed to City pressure to cut mentions of individual crimes out of their monthly crime reports.
Their latest monthly report for January, delivered by S. Sgt. Phil Wilson at the North Battleford council meeting Feb. 27, no longer specifically mentioned individual occurrences of interest,
Councillor Trent Houk noticed the omission of the regular "occurrences of interest" section of the report and wondered if it had been removed. Wilson confirmed it had.
"I was asked to change the format of the report to a certain extent," said Wilson, on the idea that "trends and crime statistics are more important."
There had been calls in the past several months by councillors to change the way the RCMP crime reports are presented. Councillor Ron Crush had previously called on the RCMP to no longer include graphic descriptions of individual crimes in their reports, expressing the view that statistics were more useful.
As well, earlier this year Counillor Brad Pattinson called for the RCMP to deliver more of their reports during the regular council meetings on the grounds there would be more publicity and more coverage of the reports on TV. Right now the RCMP reports are presented during municipal services meetings and only presented at council during months when municipal services meetings are cancelled, as was the case in February.
For his part, Houk expressed regret over the removal of occurrences of interest from the monthly reports.
"I appreciated them personally," said Houk, adding "it was interesting to know what kind of weird things were going on in the community and I thought the public had a right to know that as well."
