ATHABASCA – Sometimes you’re tracking down drug dealers, and sometimes you’re responding to calls about cattle on the highway — it’s something different every day in law enforcement.
That was one of the calls Athabasca RCMP members responded to recently, in what Staff Sgt. Paul Gilligan described as a steady couple weeks between Feb. 26 and March 11.
“This is a busy place,” he said in an interview March 11.
In that time period, detachment members responded to five complaints of theft; five break-and-enters; and six for mischief. There was also one assault and one sexual assault within the detachment area.
There were also three fraud complaints, said Gilligan, including one involving an estate, and another involving fraudulent credit cards.
“A person reported that someone managed to obtain credit cards from Canadian Tire and Home Hardware in their name, they found out and cancelled them before they were used, but now they're the subject of an identity fraud and all the grief of trying to deal with that,” he said.
Gilligan reported there were also 12 additional Criminal Code complaints during those two weeks that ranged from uttering threats, to unsafe storage of a firearm, to harassing communications, and condition breaches.
RCMP also responded to five traffic collisions involving property damage, five 911 calls and five calls for assistance from other agencies. Members also responded to five calls regarding suspicious vehicles.
There were nine calls for assistance from the general public, along with two calls regarding the Mental Health Act, and two false alarms.
Gilligan also noted members completed six investigations involving COVID-19 and the Public Health Act and handed out one violation ticket to an individual who was supposed to be isolating, but wasn’t.
