Blair Letrud Bobcat and Yard Services has seen a rough year.
Blair Letrud, whose shop is located at 772 - 108 St., estimates he’s been robbed of around $10,000 in fuel, vehicle batteries and parts and other things, in approximately 80 incidents since the spring. Thieves stole fuel by cutting a tube that goes to nine trucks’ gas tanks and siphoning it with a hose they’d leave behind.
Letrud said his children have seen people scale the fence around the shop “in broad daylight,” and he’s replaced the lock on a gate “about 10 times.”
“They come along, cut it off, leave it at the bottom of the gate post and just walk in there,” Letrud said. “I don’t know if they’re using an angle grinder or bolt cutters or what.”
Letrud said he’s phoned the police “a half dozen times” but said he thinks the response involved little more than listening to his concern.
Each time he received the same, as he put it, “nonchalant” response.
Letrud then gave up phoning police.
The activity, he said, contributed to him selling trucks and equipment. He said he’s kept a bobcat at home for a couple months and he’s renting out the shop where many of the thefts occurred.
In casual conversations with police, Letrud said he’s heard the thieves could be progressively stealing small things from his business for drug money.
“The last time when I got ripped off, whoever was stealing the batteries out of my truck lost their crack pipe underneath it,” Letrud said.
For security, Letrud said he had “just a fence.” He said he’s heard from other business owners about thieves stealing security cameras.
Crime and property crime are frequently discussed topics at North Battleford city council meetings, and the News-Optimist has written much about it, including reports from council meetings and some detailed descriptions of the City’s plan in an article about residential property crime called “City and some residents disagree about crime reduction strategies.”
Randy Patrick has been city manager since Aug. 1, and strategies to reduce crime largely remain what they have been over past months, despite his taking over the job from former City Manager Jim Puffalt.
“I don’t change overall strategy without going to council,” Patrick said.
Patrick said there’s been a “huge pool of expertise developed over the last few years” and he’s relying on those people to “bring me up to speed.”
The City has a multi-faceted plan for dealing with crime.
In conjunction with the RCMP, the City is looking at concepts such as “high-risk lifestyle” which motivate crime in the first place. A strategy involves looking at the social problems that influence crime, then attempting to align four levels of government (municipal, First Nation, provincial and federal) toward funding certain initiatives.
Some more local, City-run initiatives are Eyes That Care and Citizens on Patrol. They share similaritie, but are different, Community Safety Co-ordinator Herb Sutton said. Sutton works for both the City and the RCMP.
Eyes That Care “is really designed to encourage neighbours to get to know each other,” Sutton said.
The program is designed to motivate people to commit to “going around and introducing themselves to their neighbours if they don’t know them already” and “committing themselves to paying attention to their own property,” making sure doors are locked and valuables out of cars,” along with generally keeping an eye out for unusual activity and communicating.
The goal of Eyes That Care is to promote and encourage community.
An initiative relevant to Letrud’s situation is Citizens on Patrol.
Sutton said Citizens on Patrol meets once a month. RCMP are involved, and patrolling locations is based on information from police “about where they’re seeing trends in the city,” Sutton said, in order to “tailor their patrols in those areas where there might be more calls for service.”
“We’re up to over 30 members of Citizens on Patrol,” Sutton said. “It’s starting to become a fairly decent cross section of our community,” adding folks live in different areas of the city.
Both Sutton and Patrick said Citizens on Patrol patrol business areas.
Former City Manager Jim Puffalt said residents and business owners are responsible for their own property, although the City offers supports. If residents and business owners do their part, the City will too, the argument goes. City leaders have said the City spends money on initiatives that aren’t the responsibility of other municipalities.
Sutton said the best way to attract the attention of RCMP and Citizens on Patrol to patrol certain areas is by reporting incidents to police.
Letrud isn’t the first to express futility at reporting frequent, individual instances of property crime. The matter arose at town halls hosted by RCMP in Biggar and Spiritwood earlier this year, in which RCMP urged reporting incidents to police, even if results might not be immediate.
“Am I going to be able to do something right away with the information? Maybe not,” Sgt. Colin Sawrenko said to a crowd in Biggar in March. “But you just don’t know what piece of the puzzle that fits into unless you provide it to us.”
Sawrenko said crime can occur successively in nearby locations, and the more calls are made, the more likely the RCMP will be in the area where incidents are occurring.
As Letrud sees it, a solution to reducing crime is hiring more police.
RCMP Insp. John Sutherland told the News-Optimistin January, North Battleford has the highest police per population ratio in Canada. He said the plan for reducing crime must be long-term because short-term solutions often involve displacing the problem, which often leads to continued crime.
In comments regarding bad tenants, Sutherland said displacing them isn’t the issue.
“The issue is getting them the services that [some people] need. Those are social addictions issues, those need to be fixed and then the problem should fix itself. Very often it’s just easy to call the police and the problem goes away for 10 hours, 12 hours, a week. But until we fix the problem and the issues that cause it, it’s going to keep coming back.”
An August report by RCMP to the City of North Battleford noted overall calls for service decreased from 2,460 to 2,356 for the April to June quarter. Residential break and enters are down from 87 last year to 61 this year. Business break and enters are down slightly from 17 to 16. Property offences are down from 1,300 to 1,189.
Criminal code offences are down from 904 to 781. Sgt. Jason Teniuk called this a “very significant decrease” and a “very positive step.”
At a recent city council meeting, Sutton mentioned conducting surveys to see how residents perceive crime reduction strategies.
Whether or not short-term or long-term solutions are more effective, Letrud doesn’t want small business owners in his part of the City overlooked in the debate.
“We’re all victims of this crap,” Letrud said. “It’s frustrating as hell.”
— With information from John Cairns
