ATHABASCA – Most crime numbers are down slightly in the Athabasca area for the 2019-20 fiscal year.
Athabasca RCMP Detachment commander Staff Stg. Paul Gilligan met with Athabasca town council June 2 to discuss crime stats from the last year. Speaking online from his office Gilligan broke down the calls to service his detachment received for the Town of Athabasca zone, including services provided at the detachment.
Over 1,000 of the crimes were divided into 12 categories and the remaining 1,407 reports were of lesser charges or services.
"Overall, almost all areas of crime are down in the Town of Athabasca,” he said. “That's year over year up until the end of May. So, that's positive on many fronts.”
Traffic collisions went up eight from last year to 117. Provincial traffic charges wered own from 672 to 453. Traffic criminal code charges are up three to eight as are weapons offences. Drug charges went up one from three to four. Sexual assaults dropped from nine to two, while other crimes against persons went from 129 to 76. Theft under $5,000 charges also fell by 34 to 105 and vehicle thefts are down three to 31. Mischief charges dropped slightly from 223 to 214. Frauds were down from 45 to 20 and break and enters went down from 82 to 62.
The calls to service and other services provided in the town were 2,507, or 31.35 per cent of the total 7,998 calls for the 2019-20 fiscal year.
“That's just for the town overall. We're at about 8,000 different things that we do,” Gilligan noted.
Coun. John Traynor asked Gilligan to clarify what constitutes mischief, wondering if it meant vandalism or other property damage.
"The vast majority of (mischief) are sleeping in the banks; scored by us as interfering with the enjoyment of the bank property,” Gilligan explained. “I would say the vast majority of them are that; at least 60 per cent. We don't have a lot of real damage to property, but we do get some of that.”
Gilligan also informed council about how the detachment ran short staffed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he is expecting two new recruits once things open up.
“Our resources right now are in good shape; we're short one constable presently. We were supposed to receive two from training academy in depot however, the training academy was shut down over COVID and I have no timeline for when I'll be receiving those resources,” he said. “I said I'm short one, but I was due to get two, with the new funding arrangement with the Alberta government.”
He added that Athabasca is noted as being one of the busiest detachments in terms of caseload per member.
"I think six to eight months from now, if we get up to snuff and have a full complement with members, it'll make a considerable difference on policing in this community,” he added.
Coun. Rob Balay questioned Gilligan about known repeat offenders and the transient community.
“We do have some new people or people who were here who happened to come back,” Gilligan stated. “I think the COVID situation is sending people back to where they came from and I think in this case there's a lot of people from Athabasca who have gone to Edmonton and seem to be coming back; more drifters downtown is what I’m speaking about.”
Gilligan also allowed some frustration to show regarding a revolving door of a few people in police custody.
“Very, very few people that we've taken for bail hearings have been detained,” he said. “To give you some anecdotes that would probably cause some of your hair to fall out people, we've arrested some people eight, nine times over the last couple of months and they just keep getting out. So, there are a few that have been remanded, but they're just remanded for one or two days usually and then they're out."
He added that while it was frustrating, it was probably due to the lack of violent crime that likely contributed to the releases.
“All I can say is we have very little violent crime here, very little,” he said. “And I think that that speaks volumes when they're looking at who they're going to hold in custody prior being found guilty of something.”
Heather Stocking, TownandCountryToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @HLSox
