While rural crime was a concern at the Nipawin RCMP’s town hall meeting, there were no questions about using force to protect property.
“What kind of advice can you give us who are rural who may have to wait for some time for you guys to get out there?” asked an audience member at the March 28 forum. “What can we do and what can you help us do without putting a strain on your resources or to tide us over until you get there?”
S/Sgt. Darren Wouters emphasized that each situation was different and there was no set answer, but the police would get to the scene as soon as possible, calling on-call officers if necessary.
“As a community or municipality, you can consider rural crime watch. It does get more eyes and ears,” he responded. There are currently no rural crime watches in the Nipawin detachment area.
The commanding officer said he wasn’t surprised there weren’t questions about using force to protect property in the Nipawin area.
“We do have some rural crime but it’s not significant and we haven’t had any real volatile situations in regards to property crime,” he said. “People are tired of having batteries stolen or people being on their property but for the most part, people in this area have utilized good common sense and realize that a battery stolen out of a truck isn’t worth putting themselves in harm’s way.”
From April 2017 to March 2018, there were 481 property crimes in the Nipawin detachment area, compared to 464 the year before. Overall, there were 3,524 calls for service in 2017-18, compared to 3,547 in 2016-17.
Wouters said if rural residents do see something suspicious, they shouldn’t be scared to call the police.
“We always try to get there. It may not be as timely as people want, if we get out there, if we can get a licence number, sometimes pieces just fall into the right place.”
Approximately 50 attended the meeting at the Nipawin Legion Hall.
“We had pretty good attendance here tonight and we had people who are informed about what’s going on in the area,” Wouters said. “They raised some legitimate concerns.”
One member of the audience told the meeting he was concerned the 11 officers based out of Nipawin and the five based out of Smeaton weren’t enough to serve the geographic area the detachments serve.
“When the RCMP in the province delegate resources to an area, they take into account geographic size of an area, as well as crime stats,” Wouters said. “It’s my opinion that most of those detachments are running at an adequate capacity when at full strength.”
Wouters also expressed concern about illicit drugs.
“I think the hardcore drugs, like crystal meth and cocaine, are becoming more prevalent in the area and more easily accessible. We notice that,” he said. “When we have extra time, we have some very diligent officers that work closely with their contacts and we’ve had a very productive year this past year in the detachment area.”
He added 12 individuals have been charged in the Nipawin-Smeaton area for trafficking last year.
