RCMP looking for Town priorities

by Colin Smith

Morinville RCMP Detachment has sought input from the Town on its priorities for policing in the upcoming year.

The detachment annually requests input from municipal stakeholders to help establish their top three policing priorities for the upcoming year.

Along with Morinville, the detachment’s municipal stakeholders include Legal, Bon Accord, Gibbons, Sturgeon County and the Alexander First Nation.

An Administration request for direction in the matter went to Council on March 24.

Council previously discussed policing concerns at a Mar. 17 Committee of the Whole meeting and put forth family and domestic violence, including bullying; property crimes and overall crime awareness; education and the importance of reporting crimes; and school resource officer statistics and reports to council.

Morinville RCMP Detachment priorities established for the 2014/15 year included traffic, safety, property crime and community engagement.

The detachment prioritized increasing traffic safety through community awareness, education, partnerships, planning and enforcement.

Increased targeting of high risk known offenders and other related criminal activities was identified as a way to cut down on property crime. Fostering community involvement in crime reduction and community safety was also seen as key.

Once this year’s priorities have been established, following collection of stakeholder input and review of the previous year’s crime statistics and other information, they will be provided to the public and all stake holders.
The RCMP will report back on the progress made towards meeting the priorities through an annual reporting usually available in April and quarterly reports that include updates on initiatives related to the set priorities combined with general detachment reporting for the Morinville detachment.

Council voted 6-0 in favour of having Administration put forward the priorities put forth at the Mar. 17 Committee of the Whole meeting as well as continuing those from 2014/2015. Administration will provide the detachment’s Staff Sergeant Suleman with a letter expressing Morinville’s outlook on policing priorities.

Suleman is expected to appear at a Council meeting within the next couple to present the 2015/16 Morinville RCMP policing priorities.

At its meeting Council received a report from the RCMP containing incident statistics for the January to February period over the past five years.

The statistics show offences against persons falling to 41 in January-February 2015 from 42 in the same period last year. The crimes included one robbery, four assaults and two sexual assaults.

Property offences dropped from 118 to 98. There were four drug offences dealt with, down from seven.

In January-February 2015 Morinville RCMP dealt with one fatal motor vehicle collision, as they have in the same period every year since 2011. There were a total of 108 motor vehicle collisions, down from 116 in 2014.

There were also fewer occurrences that waste police time. Thirty false alarms were recorded, compared to 69 the previous year. There was only one false/abandoned 911 call, where there 18 last year.

Eight people were reported missing this January-February, a relatively high number. Although there were nine missing persons reports made during this period in 2013, there was only one in 2014 and none in 2011 and 2012.

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