Staff Sgt. Derek Eberle has been the detachment commander in La Ronge for about 15 months. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

update

RCMP deliver quarterly report to town council

May 1, 2025 | 3:04 PM

A discussion with La Ronge RCMP Staff Sgt. Derek Eberle dominated a regular town council meeting earlier this week.

Eberle was there to present his quarterly report, as well as to talk about the detachment’s action plan for 2025. From January 1 to March 31, local officers responded to 1,463 incidents just in the Town of La Ronge.

Specifically, there were 225 reports of mischief, 70 Liquor Act violations, 60 under the Mental Health Act, 44 assaults and 36 under the robbery/extortion/harassment and threats category. Due to recent activity from traffic services, there were 138 provincial traffic offences, a sharp rise from 37 during the same period in 2024.

“Since I’ve been here now, I’ve gotten emails out of Ottawa each fiscal year asking why our mischiefs have gone through the roof, and that could be just because of scoring,” Eberle explained.

“Mischief can cover a couple of things, but mischiefs could be up too. If we end up with a lot of the homeless people causing problems, that could be scored as a mischief. If it just happens to be one of those situation where we’re responding to more. We got a lot of calls at the shelter and depending on that call, a lot of them will be mischief, but mischief is also your window getting smashed out. If I just disturb you in your residence and now I have taken that enjoyment away, that’s a mischief as well.”

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Calls for service have risen dramatically in the La Ronge RCMP area of responsibility, which also includes Air Ronge and several Lac La Ronge Indian Band communities. During the first quarter of 2025, there were 4,108 calls for service, while there were 3,303 during the same period in 2024.

The quarterly report provided to town council. (Town of La Ronge)

Also at the La Ronge council meeting, Eberle noted the detachment will be focused on priorities such as building relationships and trust, enhancing policing efforts and supporting employees in 2025.

“Nothing has changed,” Eberle remarked.

“For us, it doesn’t really change a whole lot. Our work is like Groundhog Day. We deal with the same stuff, so our priorities are going to stay relatively the same.”

As for staffing, Eberle mentioned officer resources are being stretched thin. For instance, he said Southend currently has no RCMP members and La Ronge is set to lose four officers by this summer with little to gain.

While there was a drug bust last weekend and a firearm was taken off the streets, Eberle added police also have a lot of work to do in that area of enforcement.

“We haven’t seen a slow in anything, so we’ve taken a lot of drugs off the streets here … and I hate to say it, but I don’t think we’re making much of a dent in it,” he said.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com