Crime goes down in Strathmore

Sharon McLeay
Times Contributor

 

Sgt. Steve Vince, from the Strathmore RCMP, updated council on policing efforts conducted by the RCMP as part of their contract to the town and on the enhanced policing requested by council.
“The bottom line is the nice part, the crime statistics inside the municipality are down,” said Vince. “They have been steadily declining for the last three years, both in persons crime and in property crime.”
The statistics given were for the first six months of 2015. There were 940 calls, compared to 1140 from two years ago.
The enhanced traffic enforcement asked for last year by council showed that the stats are still high. They have issued approximately 70 tickets per month with a $13,000 income from the tickets that goes to finance the policing effort. When stops indicate other criminal activity, the town is not charged for that service.
“The program is certainly worthwhile. Last month we had a traffic stop that ended up in a high speed pursuit that ended down by Eagle Lake. It ended up apprehending someone who was wanted for multiple warrants in Calgary,” said Vince.
He said the search led to discovery of three individuals involved in a human trafficking ring working in the sex trade in the Strathmore area. The ladies were taken off the street and put in more appropriate conditions. Two weeks ago $40,000 in cash was taken off an ex-convict who was involved in the human traffic trade.
Councillors were concerned about noise complaints that they had from the public in areas about town. However, Sgt. Vince said that they only received 20 complaints, registered with them about Kinsman Park, in a six month period and only four were noise related. Response time on non-emergency calls show they respond 96 per cent of the time in under 10 minutes. Vince said that there had been some frustration with the centralized dispatch system coming out of Red Deer as they had noticed some delays in getting calls to the detachment. Council asked if better bylaws might give officers more enforcement options; however, Vince said that they were a tool, but not the primary service of the RCMP and suggested that it might be more appropriately relate to duties of the town peace officer.
“From what you said, there is a reduction of in crime in the community over the last three years and that is not done easily,” said Councillor Bob Sobol. “It speaks highly to the members on the force and I would like you to thank the members of the force for the job they are doing. If I had a 15-year-old daughter in this town, and I don’t have, but if I did and she said at 9:30 at night ‘I am going out for a walk,’ there wouldn’t be an ounce of concern in me … that equates that we are living in a pretty safe community. You guys get a lot of flack, but I think you should get some credit too! We live in a good town and a safe town. So thank you.”