Kimberley City Council received the third quarter policing report on Monday evening. The report is usually delivered in person by Cpl. Chris Newel of the Kimberley RCMP but he was unavailable this week. Council voted to receive the report in his absence.
Road Safety
Road safety continues to be an area of concern, we receive complaints about erratic drivers regularly. A large portion of them are on the highway, but we do actively follow up on the calls.
If we don’t locate the offenders, we often follow up with a warning letter or a phone call, this alerts the registered owner there was a complaint.
Over the three months, we had 168 traffic contacts and eleven impaired drivers were removed from the road. This is higher than the previous quarter by about 8%. Public Relations and Visibility. Over the course of the quarter, officers did 33 foot patrols through various venues, bars and the Platzl. There was 15 school visits and 10 road checks. This does not include DARE instruction which we do at the Grade 5 level.
Crime Reduction
We monitor offenders in the community that are under court ordered conditions. Over the past few months the number of subjects on conditions has declined. We have one who has been charged twice in the last few weeks with Breach of Probation. By closely monitoring these subjects we hope to keep the crime rate low. Nineteen checks were conducted, down considerably for other quarters, but we have less subjects on orders and a number of them are do not typically cause problems.
Crime Reduction Unit
The two person Cranbrook/Kimberley Crime Reduction Unit has been very effective and has no shortage of work. In the last quarter they conducted three drug trafficking investigations that resulted in the arrest of six persons. All involved cocaine, one was a significant amount and likely had connections in Kimberley. Family Violence We have been focusing on education in the middle school, this will take place in the fall.
Calls for Service
The detachment was called to investigate/attend 406 calls for service in this quarter which is 40 (-10 %) less calls than the previous quarter and 18 more calls (+4%) from the same quarter in 2015. The winter quarter always has less calls from service than the other quarters. Our call volume over the years is fairly consistent with periodic spikes. The increases are usually the result of one or two persons committing a large number of offences in short periods. The quicker we can get them in jail or out of the community the better. With the warmer weather we expect the calls for service to increase. Resources
We are almost full strength, something I have not seen since my arrival in Kimberley. We are short one person and we should see some movement on that in the near future. Some transfers have been discussed but there is nothing confirmed. We typically function with one or two vacancies, something that has been endorsed by City Council.
Cpl. Chris Newel
Acting Detachment Commander
Kimberley Detachment