TISDALE — If community members see more RCMP officers sitting out by stop signs, it’s not by chance.
In mid-April the Tisdale detachment spent a week focused on stop signs in particular.
“We sat at the intersection of 99th Avenue and 101st Street, right by the skate park and high school, and we were targeting the stop sign there,” said Cpl. Mike Benjamin with the Tisdale detachment. “Stop signs are important, people need to come to a stop at those stop signs.”
This is part of the Tisdale detachment’s renewed focus on traffic enforcement, which due to high priority files and officer shortages they couldn’t get the additional the time to focus on.
“We just had way too much going on,” Benjamin said. “We had priority files that needed to be taken care of. Now we’re back up to speed, we’re fully staffed with our two constables we recently received and we’re good to go.”
Traffic enforcement is a priority for the Tisdale detachment, specifically with vehicles running stop signs, cell phone usage, speeding and seatbelts.
“That’s going to continue to be what we’re looking for,” Benjamin said. “It’s the leading causes of injury death on our roadways so we will continue to focus on that. But everything else under the Traffic Safety Act is in our enforcement capabilities as well.”
In addition to the Tisdale detachment, a traffic unit based out of Naicam has been working in Tisdale.
This isn’t new for the community, with the traffic unit being around for several months now.
“Between the two units we’re seeing an increased focus in the area. It has always been a priority but we were kind of bogged down with stuff for awhile.”
Activities
From April 10 to 24 the Tisdale detachment had received 86 calls for service including four assaults, one impaired driver and four bylaw complaints. One of the four complaints was due to a vehicle parking in front of the library in a designated area for an extended period of time. It did not occur during the Telus Cup or the Rambler Rodeo, which Benjamin said would have been an exception due to the number of people entering and exiting the facility.
The Tisdale detachment had members on site with the Rambler Rodeo to make sure the event stayed under control.
“It went really well. We really didn’t see a surge of calls as a result of the rodeo, it was very tame,” Benjamin said. “We had a heavy presence on the site and on the road. We had members conducting traffic enforcement.”
Over the two week period there were also five motor vehicle collisions, three wellbeing checks, four complaints of fraud and three complaints of theft. The thefts are under investigation with leads.
