By Tyler Marr

‘Don’t live in fear. Live in understanding’ RCMP say at town hall

Oct 19, 2018 | 5:00 PM

A crowd fed up with crime in their community and yearning for change. 

That was the clear expression from about 25 residents at the Don Ross Community Centre as the Battlefords RCMP hosted a town hall this week.

Staff Sgt. Darcy Woolfitt attempted to field an array of questions from residents who at times were not afraid to strongly vocalize their discontent with happenings in and around the city.

“I’m starting to be hard and bitter [from the crime],” one woman said. “It is easy to get that ugliness about you and that is what we don’t want.”

It took less than five minutes for the crowd to begin punctuating the night with questions and comments, occasionally snowballing into a heated back and forth. Initial gasps came when Woolfitt displayed a map outlining the vast area the detachment is forced to cover. Though much is rural and scarcely populated, Woolfitt said the high number of transient criminals through the area can prove difficult to police.

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“We can’t be everywhere at once,” Woolfitt said, stressing the need for everyone to play a part in policing.

More hands sprung up in the crowd when he detailed the staffing levels at the detachment and what internal and external specialized units they have the ability to call upon. At any given time, there are approximately 10 officers on patrol, split between rural and municipal areas. While the numbers vary night to night, only about six officers will be on city streets, but should a sudden spike of calls come in, the detachment is able to call in additional members to assist — something that happens quite often.

The RCMP stressed the importance of safety starting at home and the need to foster a greater sense of community. This was echoed by one lady in attendance.

“Everyone wants to take care of themselves,” she said. “Everyone has to watch out for each other. None of this ‘you and me.’ That is the only way we are going to get things solved.”

Cpl. Jason Olney concurred, adding how the police “are not the answer. We are the respondents.”

“A lot of this isn’t done overnight. We have to continue to keep working together,” he added. 

Joining or becoming more involved with community policing, such as becoming a Community Safety Officer or joining a Citizens on Patrol or Rural Crime Watch program, reporting all crime, and establishing community-based crime prevention were noted as places residents could start. Alongside this, both Woolfitt and Olney maintained a need to curtail petty property crime, as it takes up a large chunk of their time and costs a lot of money. The officers pleaded with residents to keep keys out of their cars, believing upwards of 80 per cent of vehicles are stolen in this fashion and expressing a clear exhaustion of chasing stolen vehicles around town.

Locking gun safes was another item the officers pointed to as needing to be done.

“We have these big fancy gun safes. Lock them up,” Olney said, hinting at a desire to soon approach the Crown and examine ways to charge those whose failure to do so results in a theft.

“It would make you sick to be perfectly honest with you [to know how many guns we take off the street],” Olney added. “If we solved that one problem then I could start to make headway. If we solve the one problem of nobody stealing cars then I could start to make headway.”

Ensuring properly lit properties and finding greater cooperation between the work being done by community groups to address problems on the addiction and mental health front were other priorities discussed.

Both officers spoke on a desire to move to a predictive crime model, enhance crime suppression and policing driven by statistics, but are having trouble doing so with many officers burnt out and difficulties recruiting to the region. This comes in part due to the over 5,000 people moved through the cellblock annually and the fact the Battlefords RCMP detachment receives the highest number of calls through Crime Stoppers.

Talk on the recent CTV W5 documentary surfaced at one point with Jason saying he did not like the way it portrayed the city but said it “was a good way to get people to understand what goes on inside their community.”

“Understand what goes on and don’t live in fear,” Olney said.

Despite the clear passion and emotion exhibited from residents, Woolfitt preferred it to people uninterested in making a change.

“It shows me they are concerned and care about what is happening in the community. If they sat here and didn’t show that emotion, I would be concerned,” he said. “I think those people, with some of the information they gained here, are going to go back where they live in the city and share that information with their friends and a family and they may do different things with their property … to help us.”

tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr