Crime down, but mental health calls rise

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Crime was lower in Strathmore during the first three months of the year, but the RCMP detachment is now responding to more mental health calls.

At the regular Strathmore town council meeting on May 6, Staff Sgt. Dale Morgan presented crime statistics for the first quarter of 2020. While crimes are down by about 19 per cent in Strathmore, the RCMP responded to 39 mental health complaints.

Mental health calls do not result in persecutions, as there is no associated chargeable offense. Rather, these calls result in interventions, such as transporting individuals to a hospital or stay home, said Morgan, who added he anticipates the trend of more mental health calls to continue into the next quarter.

This trend, while possibly expected, is concerning, said Councillor Bob Sobol.

“Twelve complaints under the Mental Health Act in a month, under the best of times, are concerning,” said Sobol, who questioned if there was anything council and the Strathmore community could do to help the situation. “It’s something that our administration should be aware of – and especially our FCSS people,” he said.

Councillor Lorraine Bauer said mental health must be in the “forefront of our minds” as the town is affected by COVID-19, because “people are really hurting.”

Domestic disputes have also been on the rise, with 10 in one weekend.

For COVID-related health concerns, such as individuals not following social distancing requirements, residents should contact Alberta Health Services (AHS), said Morgan.

“COVID is a health-led emergency,” he said. “Alberta Health has their own investigative and enforcement personnel.”

But the RCMP may provide help to AHS if the provincial health authority has exceeded its capacity, or if a police presence is required for an investigation. However, they are the third line of response, after community officers, and no such request has been made so far, said Morgan.

“We are very much trying to stay in our lane,” he said.

Strathmore RCMP has responded to two complaints directly, rather than forwarding them to AHS, since the onset of COVID-19, said Morgan. The RCMP’s objective with these matters is education and voluntary compliance, rather than enforcement, said Morgan.

“To get to the point of enforcement, we will still do the investigation, (but) we would forward it to Alberta Health, and they make the ultimate determination,” he said. “To get the benchmark for the criteria to actually charge is quite difficult.”

The detachment has been assigned six quarantine checks to ensure individuals are complying with quarantine requirements, which “could be two, three or four checks” for each person.

Nineteen investigations were conducted in response to suspected DUIs between January and March. However, this figure could include instances where a driver was stopped, but was found not to be impaired, said Morgan.

The detachment recorded 66 suspicious persons or vehicles reports last quarter, which could be a promising sign, said Sobol.

“It tells me two things: first of all, our citizens are reporting these suspicious persons and vehicles, and more importantly, your detachment is taking them seriously,” said Sobol. “That’s something that is very encouraging for me, because they are not always taken seriously.”

The public should understand that posting suspicious activity to social media without reporting it to the RCMP is “useless” for policing, said Morgan. “It’s very hard to track emerging crime trends if we are not getting incidents reported.”