ATHABASCA/BOYLE - It has been a busy year for RCMP detachments in the immediate region, with an officer-involved and other shootings taking place, stabbings, arsons, people turning up missing or dead — on top of everything else members deal with in the course of their shifts — but despite all that, crime stats are actually down.
Athabasca RCMP Staff Sgt. Paul Gilligan and Boyle RCMP Cpl. Colin Folk presented an annual report to Athabasca County councillors at their Oct. 13 meeting, showing persons and property crimes are all down, significantly, over the last year, along with traffic offences, but that doesn’t mean members are not still running on fumes.
“We’ve had a really, really rough month here with a murder up in Calling Lake and a member-involved shooting in the same 24-hour period,” said Gilligan. “We had a missing person investigation up there that was quite time consuming and then the following weekend we had a motor vehicle accident up there, involving several young people.”
Gilligan did have some good news to share too though, telling council he was now expecting two fresh recruits from Regina in the next couple months, which he called “fantastic,” and said that with the new funding model, which sees rural municipalities now pay for a portion of policing costs, he also expects additional clerical staff and a new police vehicle in the coming year. Only eight positions were allotted for Eastern Alberta, and Athabasca is now getting two of them.
“That speaks to just how overwhelmed we are with work, they looked at the workload and distributed them according to that,” said Gilligan.
“Aside from that, I do have a number of members that are off-duty … so our resources are thinning. I do have two members here from Fort Mac … to augment our resources.”
Folk reported, “resources in Boyle are pretty good right now,” as a newly assigned member is scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks.
Numbers from Oct. 5, 2019 to Oct. 5, 2020, from both detachments were presented together, as each detachment covers a different portion of the county.
Persons crimes are committed against an individual, like murder, assault and sexual assault — these are down more than 52 per cent, from 219 in 2019 to 104 in 2020. Property crimes like theft are down from 156 to 100 (35.9 per cent); motor vehicle theft is down from 104 to 61 (41.3 per cent); mischief charges are down from 210 to 87 (58.6 per cent); and break-and-enter crimes are down from 205 to 124 (39.5 per cent). Traffic charges are also down more than 85 per cent, falling from 3,867 to just 575.
Coun. Dennis Willcott said the frequency of thefts and suspicious vehicles was noticeable and applauded the officers, as did Coun. Doris Splain.
“A lot of that reduction is in Boyle more than in Athabasca … but it’s good news nonetheless,” said Gilligan.
He also noted that goals like community engagement, that were decided upon before COVID-19 hit, have really been restricted by the pandemic.
“We’re trying to work our way around that and stay safe,” he said.
The virus has also meant additional precautions and additional work for RCMP as they are sometimes tasked with checking on international returns to the community to ensure isolation requirements are being met, but they are not notified of new cases. However, if a complaint was received, Gilligan said RCMP would be obligated to look into it.
