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Be part of the solution

People need to be realistic. There is only so much a municipal police force can do in the fight against crime.

People need to be realistic.

There is only so much a municipal police force can do in the fight against crime.

In recent weeks and months, Barrhead’s RCMP Detachment has been taking a lot a flack from the public, especially in social media about what many see is a crime epidemic.

And the truth of the matter is while we do not believe it has reached epidemic proportions, as Barrhead RCMP Sgt. Bob Dodds said last week at an RCMP open house on rural crime the numbers are not pretty.

Nor are we alone. The crime rate is going up across the country, Alberta especially.

So kudos to the Barrhead RCMP for putting themselves in the line of fire and hosting an open house on rural crime.

Quite frankly we were not expecting it to be so civilized, considering what we have seen on social media.

So what did we find out?

Not much, at least from a newspaper’s perspective. For the most part, most of Dodd’s presentation was something we have heard before.

Did it come as a surprise to us that crime is on the increase? Not really and nor should it come to our readers. As part of our municipal council coverage, Dodds regularly gives councillors a quarterly update on the state of affairs. Yes, sometimes he has said the crime statistics are holding the line or have decreased slightly.

However, in the more recent reports, he has said crime is on an upward trend, especially property crime, which is what he said once again.

As part of these reports, he also talks about staffing levels. In the past, we have been reluctant to report this in too much detail, as we didn’t think it was in the community’s best interest. After all, it isn’t inconceivable that the criminal element could read the newspaper.

Let’s just say at the best of times the detachment has its work cut out for them attempting to serve such a large geographical area with so few members.

He also has emphasized the need for the community to help the police by being their extra eyes and ears and reporting suspicious activity to them as well as take some simple preventative measures to make your property less of a target.

It seems like several people are not listening, instead choosing to complain, again mostly through social media, about how lazy or incompetent our members are.

Like any organization, they are not perfect, but in our dealings with the Barrhead RCMP, we find them to be a professional, hard-working group of individuals that have the best intentions for the community. After all, they live here too. To paraphrase Eldridge Cleaver, “You either have to be part of the solution, or you’re going to be part of the problem.”

So let us all try to be part of the solution and help the police do their jobs by looking for creative ways to help them instead of being part of the problem by calling them names.

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