Athabasca County crime rates are up slightly so far this year compared to last year, and continued staffing shortages at the Athabasca RCMP have not helped, according to Athabasca RCMP Sgt. Brian Scott.
“We’ve been busy,” said Scott in his quarterly report to Athabasca County council at its regular meeting last Thursday.
Between July 15 and Oct. 31, there were 15 reports of assault in the county; 11 thefts under $5,000; five reports of uttering threats; eight motor vehicle thefts; five criminal harassments; and nine cases of possession of stolen property.
There were approximately 170 vehicular collisions, 40 per cent of them animal related, which the sergeant attributed to a “huge” number of deer incidents.
Athabasca RCMP have executed a number of high-profile busts in recent months, including raiding theft rings in the county from which hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen property have been recovered.
One individual detained in connection to one of the theft rings, Robert Lysohirka, pled guilty to various charged in October and faces three years in jail.
Councillor Dennis Willcott was displeased that people committing such serious crimes are not detained longer.
Scott said the current speeding record in the area on Highway 2 was set by a male driver in his 20s in the summer near Perryvale. The driver was caught by Athabasca RCMP doing 201 kilometres per hour.
That driver was handed a $1,700 fine and a 30-day license suspension and was given “a whole bunch of demerit points.”
“One of the traffic guys got him,” Scott said of his Athabasca RCMP traffic section members. Despite the detachment’s staffing challenges, there are now three traffic unit members for “full-time traffic enforcement,” up from one last January and none prior to that, according to Scott.
Scott said there were two “major non-local emergency deployments” this past summer. The first occurrence was in April with the provincial jail guard strike, leading the detachment to deploy a members to “backfill various jail facilities throughout the province.”
The second deployment was during late June and July when the detachment sent members to the High River area to assist with the southern Alberta flood relief.
In the Town of Athabasca, Scott said there has been a rise in a number of areas of crime, though not all.
For the Jan. 1 – Sept. 30 date range, criminal harassments are up to 12 compared to eight last year, and there have been 17 threats this year compared to 13 last year.
Scott said 24 reported break and enters this year, compared to 16 last year, have his detachment concerned, and they are working on it the best they can.
There has also been a rise in sexual assault cases this year, compared to one last year: three in 2013 comprising two between April and September and one prior to April.
“It’s the type of thing where they’re continuing to come in, and people, I think, are becoming a little bit more comfortable with reporting them, and we’re seeing, it seems to be, anyway … a slight increase (over previous years),” said Scott.
The most serious case by far was the case of 67-year-old Armand Lacoursiere, who confessed in July to sexually abusing numerous children over the course of 30 years.
The Athabasca County resident has been remanded in custody and has yet to be sentenced. Scott said the accused may face a double-digit jail sentence due to the severity of the crimes.
Scott suggested an underutilized radar machine could be used by Town of Athabasca community peace officer Shaun Woloschuk, were he to undergo the necessary training to use the equipment, which Scott said would be at a reasonable cost to the town.
“It makes sense to have him trained in the operation of it,” said Scott. “I think it would help us out, especially in the school zones … where he might be able to assist there.”
Woloschuk independently noted in his report to council last week that there has been an increase in traffic violations occurring at all Athabasca schools. School principals and local RCMP have been in contact, and patrols have been increased “(in) school zones as problems are occurring on a daily basis,” according to the peace officer.
The Athabasca RCMP have two job vacancies at their front desk after one front-line clerk left abruptly this past summer and the detachment was authorized to fill a second position.
The detachment is also losing one of its members as Cpl. Francis Hachey was recently reassigned to Edmonton. Scott said he will be promoting one of his constables to an acting corporal position.
