WESTLOCK – As the weather turns warmer, incidents of mischief continue to climb, including a recent spray-painting spree in Westlock April 23.
Westlock RCMP Detachment acting commander Cpl. Riley Sutherland presented an update on the recent incident and the current crime stats for the months of March and April in her RCMP report during the Town of Westlock regular council meeting April 24.
“One that is definitely showing higher is mischief-other and next month we’ll definitely see an increase having to do with mischief to property because there was a series of spray-painting tags done throughout the community last night,” said Sutherland. “Mischief is definitely on the rise so that’s damage to property …where there’s actual spray painting to the property, broken windows and things like that.”
She noted the “mischief-other” category includes the “disruption of enjoyment of property” as well.
“That one is on a significant increase and that’s stemming from where we’re moving a lot of the suspicious vehicles, suspicious people,” she said, pointing to the example of people sleeping in bank vestibules. “Rather than that being a suspicious person now, it’s being tracked as mischief-other. That’s why there’s that huge upswing in the mischief that we’re starting to see there.”
In noting the statistics, Sutherland pointed to the jump in mischief-other files which increased from 37 between January to March 2022 to 69 files for the same time period in 2023, representing an 86 per cent increase. Total persons crimes from January to March 2023 are down seven to 41 this year, representing a 15 per cent decrease.
Total Criminal Code files have also slightly decreased between January to March with 202 files to 191 in the same time period in 2023. Others of note in the report included a jump in total provincial traffic files from 37 between January to March 2022 to 639 in the same time period in 2023.
RCMP are also seeing more damage to property and “more break and enters within the community and the county at large,” as well as with thefts, with Sutherland pointing to the recent arrests of four people in relation to a series of break and enters in both Westlock and Barrhead. She noted both urban and rural areas have been hit by an increase in break and enters between January and April 2023 and RCMP are hoping to connect more of the recent incidents “to these (four) people and hold them accountable for it.”
“It might be that people don’t always notice when somethings been gone through, whether it be a vehicle or they’ve left it unlocked, if it’s a garage they’ve left unlocked or a shed,” said Sutherland. “You might not notice something has been taken until you go to use it in the spring.”
