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Tawatinaw resident wakes to burning truck in driveway

Few details have been released, but incident reveals difficulties of rural policing
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A truck fully engulfed in flames on a rural road near Tawatinaw Jan. 13. It’s just one more incident that has residents on edge and wondering if they’re safe in their own homes.

WESTLOCK - Imagine waking up to a vehicle fully-engulfed in flames in your driveway at 4 a.m.

That’s the wake-up call one resident in the Tawatinaw area got last week, as they watched a stolen truck burn to the ground at the end of their driveway.

It’s one more episode in a long string of crimes that has residents around the region calling for rural policing reform.

And while the Alberta government is in the process of implementing new programs to bolster RCMP staffing, the crimes continue to happen, making many rural residents afraid to be in their own homes.

The call came in at 4:14 a.m. Jan. 13, that a truck was set on fire on a rural road and that the culprits were likely nearby.

Fire and RCMP members responded as soon as they could, but details of what happened that morning are not being released just yet. “I can confirm we were there and we’re still investigating it but we’re still in the preliminary stages,” said Westlock RCMP Staff Sgt. Al Baird.

The resident who alerted police that morning does not wish to be identified for fear of reprisal from criminals, but described sitting terrified “on guard in our house, worried that these thieves were still on our property.”

They noticed the burning car after the family was awoken by alarms.

The incident caused a stir on social media and people were sharing similar stories. While RCMP investigated, people remained worried in their own homes.

During the crime forum Nov. 8, 2019 in the Town of Westlock, Baird confirmed that RCMP in Westlock cannot operate 24 hours a day since the detachment only has 11 members for crime and investigation. Schedules are rotated, but there simply aren’t enough members.

The Tawatinaw resident too called for police schedules that match with crime hours.

“That’s just the reality of rural policing. The larger centres have the numbers to do 24 hours, but the rural areas like ours and Barrhead, we just don’t have the manpower to be able to provide 24-hour policing,” said Baird.

At the same town hall, east Alberta district manager Sgt. Luis Gandolfi explained that resource allocation is done on the basis of volume and severity of calls for service, like the one officers responded to Jan. 13.

However, surface area covered was not one of the factors listed.

“The province does basically a ratio, how many people are in the area, officers per person, how many calls are coming in, nature of the calls. Sometimes (detachments) can tick all the boxes and they’ll just say ‘We don’t have anybody to give you,’” said Baird.

He also added that Westlock County used to pay for an extra RCMP officer up until around 2017, but the contract was not renewed due to a lack of funds. Currently, he said, a municipality would have to allocate $150,000 per officer.

The province’s way of responding to intensified calls for dealing with rural crime was to increase funding for policing by $286 million over five years, paid for by municipalities. Starting in 2020, all municipalities will begin contributing to the police budget: 10 per cent this year, 15 per cent in 2021, 20 per cent in 2022 and 30 per cent in 2023.

For now, this is a financial burden placed on all municipalities across the province, with no guarantee that it will deliver officers in their areas. As Baird put it, the only thing to do right now is “wait and see.”

“It only stands to reason that those places that are busier with more violent crimes would see the increase first,” he said, which is not a good sign for locals.

At this point, RCMP is encouraging people to approach their MLA and raise the issue, and most residents are aware that detachments can’t change their operations without more officers.

As the investigation moves along, RCMP will be able to release more details about the incident near Tawatinaw. No arrests were made that night.

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