Rural theft percentages on the rise

Times Reporter

 

On Feb. 15 Staff Sgt. Larry Marzinzik from the Strathmore RCMP presented the third quarter review of the Annual Performance Plan, APP, to Wheatland County Council. While most things have stayed fairly steady, the percentages of rural thefts have increased. 

“Do I think that is a huge surge in activity? No,” said Marzinzik. 

“It’s just that the percentages are up and we have had concerns from the oil industry in specific.” 

The rise in thefts isn’t just in the Strathmore area, it’s affecting rural areas all over southern Alberta.  

He said the concerns from the oil industry are regarding thefts at drill sites. 

“What we’ve done in the past few months is…we’ve put together a small project team with representatives from Drumheller, Three Hills, Airdrie, ourselves, Beiseker, Gleichen, to look in our kind of general regional area and basically what’s affecting the county themselves in their area,” said Marzinzik. 

He said it’s an information sharing group to set up strategies to combat the thefts and break and enters. It’s also to set up more patrols in those areas, targeted patrols to try to identify people involved or sites that are insecure that they can recommend to the industry to increase security.

“The spin off on that is, it’ll also increase visibility in the rural area and give a little bit more patrol time to the residents in the rural area as well,” said Marzinzik. 

He said when industrial areas are being targeted, it’s not far off the residents might be, too. Marzinzik said the county is interested in having their enforcement officers more involved in information sharing. County enforcement officers don’t patrol at night, and Reeve Ben Armstrong pointed out someone could do reconnaissance during the day and notice that there are no patrols at night.  

“We are actually taking this to our rural crime watch group and informing them about what’s going on, and talking to them to see how they may want to become more active in participating, even in rural crime watch patrols,” said Marzinzik. 

Marzinzik feels the increase in the numbers is likely due to the economy getting better and the oil fields picking up again. He said they are prime targets, especially if they are doing new construction, because the equipment is out and can be expensive. 

The criminals are also mobile, said Marzinzik, and they tend to move around where they think the targets are most vulnerable. He said because they tend to move around it could maybe explain part of why there has been an increase in thefts.

“They don’t stay close to home anymore. If they feel they can make money coming out of Calgary and targeting areas in the rural area,” said Marzinzik. 

“There are less people out to see you doing it and if there is a profit to be made, there is a chance someone will try to capitalize on it.”

He said the council discussions are a good way to allow council to voice their concerns and for the RCMP to update the county on how things are going.