Cpl. Brett Kovar spoke about and encouraged residents to join the Saskatchewan Crime Watch Advisory Network. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

community outreach

Low turnout for RCMP town hall meeting

Oct 18, 2019 | 12:00 PM

Turnout was low for an RCMP Town Hall meeting held Thursday at the Jonas Roberts Memorial Community Centre.

Only 18 residents from the tri-communities attended the event, which was meant to inform the public about the goals and priorities for both local police and throughout the province. Each community was represented at the meeting, however, as Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB) Acting-Chief Sam Roberts, La Ronge Coun. Matthew Klassen and Air Ronge Mayor Gordon Stomp attended.

“I was a little disappointed in the number of people who came out, but I think the people who were here were engaged and they care about the community,” La Ronge RCMP Acting-Staff Sgt. Josh Hallett said. “There were some good comments too about what we’re doing as an organization to serve our community through policing.”

Within the region, Hallett stated police-identified issues are property crime, gangs, at-risk youth, intimate partner violence and alcohol and substance abuse. Those are issues he noted officers deal with on a daily basis and are actively working to mitigate. As a detachment, the priorities of police are reducing substance abuse, assisting at-risk youth, increasing community relations, enhancing road safety and prolific offender management.

In regards to property crime, Hallett reported in comparison to 2018 and 2019, mischief is up 17 per cent while break-and-enters are down 14 per cent and thefts of motor vehicles are down 10 per cent. In the first nine months of 2019, there has been 1,246 instances of mischief compared to 1,067 in 2018, 108 instances of break-and-enters compared to 126 in 2018, and 56 motor vehicle thefts compared to 62 in 2018.

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“These are some of the tactics we deploy every day to try decrease this,” Hallett said. “We’ve increased patrols, we’ve got an increased complement of town positions, so we’re going to be looking at that in the very near future. We’ve increased the unit size with our general investigation police officers, so that was only one and we increased that to three.”

Hallett also encourages residents to join Everbridge, which is a messaging system to inform residents of crimes sometimes while it’s still in progress. For example if there is a motor vehicle theft, a message is sent to all subscribers in the region to alert them of the incident, as well as details important in locating the vehicle. Residents can sign up for the Saskatchewan Crime Watch Advisory Network online here.

After the presentation, Roberts thanked the RCMP for hosting the town hall meeting and explained LLRIB council works closely with them. He also said officers report to the LLRIB at least once every three months and also invited them to community meetings coming up in November.

“The invitation is open to the RCMP to come and join us,” Roberts said. “There’s a lot more people at the meetings and a lot more questions asked at the meetings.”

Roberts also talked about how the LLRIB and RCMP have been working together with Hub, which he noted is having success with at-risk youth. He also noted the LLRIB continues to lobby for and explore the idea of having officers posted in Grandmother’s Bay or Hall Lake some day.

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno