Crime reporting changes coming to Prince Albert

Nogier said that recommendations four and five will change the nature of policing in the city.

This means that when certain complaints are phoned in, the caller may not get an in-person response from an officer.

They will still be investigated and callers will talk to an officer who will work to make sure they get some sort of resolution, Nogier stressed it will just not be with an immediate physical response.

Complaints of identity theft or scams, harassing communications, theft under $5,000 (including a vehicle), theft of a motor vehicle, mischief such as graffiti, noise complaints, disputes between neighbours, hate crimes, break and enter to outbuildings or non-emergency break and enters and hit and runs will be classified as lower priority.

If people have an identifiable suspect or there is physical danger, that changes the response.

“We had times where we were getting high-priority calls that were coming in where individuals were assigned to a lower priority call, but they just couldn’t get on it and leave. That’s where it was leading to frustration, it was leading to burnout, it was leading to inadequacy,” he said.

The fourth recommendation was to expand online reporting options for low-priority and non-violent calls.

The RCMP have also introduced a similar online reporting system in their areas of jurisdiction.

As a commercial hub for outlying communities and the north, Nogier said Prince Albert has specific challenges.

There can be between 65,000 and 70,000 people in the city but only about 40,000 are actual residents. That’s good news for the local economy, but extra work for officers when policing is generally allocated by the population of the community and not by the number of visitors.

“Prince Albert is a very unique community to police,” Nogier said. “Our story hasn’t been good for the city by virtue of the type of crime we see.”

Things that stand out are the amount of violent crime, the fact that it did not drop during pandemic restrictions like it did in other communities and incidents like flights from police officers are growing.

Prince Albert is consistently in the top five communities for violent crimes across Canada.

The unwelcome aspect of the high visitor flow is that some of it is for negative purposes.

@panownews A Ward 7 Town Hall meeting was held Tuesday night at the Ches Leach lounge. The City’s Interim Police Chief Patrick Nogier was the featured speaker. Among other things he discussed how policing in Prince Albert will change. #community #policing #crime #publicsafety ♬ original sound – paNOW

Interim Chief Patrick Nogier explains what makes policing in P.A. so challenging. (Susan McNeil/paNOW)

“The downside is that a lot of people that are coming aren’t coming in to do commerce, enjoy a night out or participating in community events. They’re coming in because they want to benefit on the vulnerability and the availability and the opportunity to commit crime,” Nogier explained.

At the moment, Prince Albert police estimates there are 650 individuals with warrants out for their arrest in the city with about 35 per cent of those non-residents.

One of the biggest tools a police force can have is air support, which can reduce the need for officers to chase suspects who flee.

People with court ordered curfews or release conditions in the city number 195, another 160 are not residents but are in town.

Calling the RCMP is not an option as they too have a high volume of files to deal with.

A helicopter and pilot are cost-prohibitive, so police are looking into a different option to deal with the approximately 10 flights from officers per week they see.

A van rests on its passenger side following a flight from police incident in Prince Albert in 2022. PAPS says they have about 10 such incidents every week. (Nigel Maxwell/paNOW)

“We don’t have that luxury. But I will offer you this. We have to re-think how we do this, so we are engaging with teams like Axon,” Nogier said, adding that Axon is known for tasers but also makes drones.

“We’re exploring the option of using a drone. It can go up in the air for a fraction of the cost it takes to buy an air support unit and it will provide good response.”

Some of the people fleeing from arrest are driving up to 95 km/hour on city streets. They are not necessarily who people might assume though; many are youth who are making a decision to stop or not in several seconds.

A zone breakdown of where the vehicles are being stolen and where the flights from police are show the West Flat with the overwhelming majority at 154. The next highest area is West Hill with 62, following closely by the East Flat with 60 occurrences so far this year.

East Hill had the lowest number with 38 and Downtown had 40. Flights from police were likely to happen on a Wednesday 22 per cent of the time.

There is concern about the prevalence of gun usage connected to criminal activity in the city, to the point that police are developing a gun strategy.

This photo from last year is just one of many gun seizures in Prince Albert. (file photo)

They are looking at BRASSTRAX, which analyzes the unique striations on bullet casings. The marks made by a gun are particular enough that the marks on the bullets are as unique as fingerprints.

The new provincial firearms office – which-kick started a provincial ballistics program in Saskatoon – will be working on a database to collect the markings.

https://panow.com/2023/09/21/police-make-arrests-in-armed-robbery-outside-p-a-high-school/

https://panow.com/2023/09/15/woman-arrested-second-suspect-sought-in-armed-robbery-on-thursday/

https://panow.com/2023/05/24/robbery-and-flight-from-police-charges-result-in-5-5-year-sentence/

https://panow.com/2022/04/01/flight-from-police-leads-to-rush-hour-collision/

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

by Susan McNeil

Crime reporting changes coming to Prince Albert

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