RCMP officers in the region continue to rely on community groups and ordinary citizens to combat rural crime, and in particular property crimes on farms, acreages and industrial sites, says Olds RCMP detachment commander Staff Sgt. Jim MacDonald.
“We have a very good relationship with several community groups, particularly Olds and District Rural Crime Watch Association (ODRCW) and Citizens on Patrol (C.O.P.),” said MacDonald. “Their dedication to helping make their communities safer has been greatly appreciated.
“In addition to our police crime reduction strategies, I attribute their involvement to the successes we saw in reducing property crime in 2018.”
National Police Week in Canada runs May 12 - 18. The week is set aside to recognize police work and its impact in Canada’s urban and rural communities.
MacDonald explained that last year more than 300 reports of suspicious activities were reported to his detachment.
“So far this year, we are on track to have about the same number,” he said.
The calls were received from many different members of the public, including motorists, business owners and, most frequently, property owners, he said.
“Some of them belong to organizations such as Rural Crime Watch, but many are just concerned citizens looking out for their own property and neighbours,” he said.
Both ODRCW and C.O.P. have been active in several recent crime prevention initiatives, he said.
“Rural Crime Watch has hosted a number of presentations including fraud prevention, crime prevention through environmental design and even drug education,” he said.
“As we know, drug abuse is often directly related to property crime.”
The association will also be hosting an upcoming crime prevention trade show on June 15.
“In addition to their vehicle patrols, C.O.P. has assisted us with our HEAT (Help End Auto Theft) initiative and have conducted community safety foot patrols during events such as the Holiday Train and Olds Christmas Midnight Madness,” he said.
Having partnerships with community groups in promoting community safety is certainly valuable, he said.
“Police officers can be quite busy at times and we certainly can't be everywhere at once,” he said. “Organizations such as these help us to have many extra sets of eyes and ears.
"This results in a benefit for both police officers and the community, as well as a deterrent for criminals who know they may be under a watchful eye.
“For those citizens involved in the organizations, they also get the benefit of hearing directly from police officers at the meetings about new crime trends, patterns and current statistics. And hopefully those messages get passed on to family, friends and neighbours.”
MacDonald cited one recent example of how RCMP-community group cooperation led to success.
“C.O.P. members were on patrol and were alerted to the description of a stolen vehicle in Olds that the officers were looking for,” he said. “A short time later they located the stolen car which was left abandoned on the street.
"They notified the officers who were working and the vehicle was recovered and returned to the owner in a short period of time. As the timeline was quick, it also led to the person who stole the vehicle and an arrest was made.”
Over the past year RCMP officers have also received several reports of suspicious vehicles in the rural areas, reports that led to the recovery of stolen vehicles and arrests, he said.
“One such call led to the arrest of a woman sitting in a rental vehicle outside a rural residence,” he said. “Officers were able to determine that she had set up a false business name and was fraudulently renting vehicles to be further used in criminal activities.
"This was all because of a simple report of a suspicious vehicle. They were certainly following one of the mandates of rural crime watch to be aware of suspicious activity and to report it.”
Although there was a significant drop in property crime in 2018 compared with 2017, moving forward it remains important for the police and community to remain vigilant in crime reduction and prevention strategies, he said.
“We still have too many vehicles being stolen in our area, more than 30 since January 1," he said. “Of these, over half may have been preventable as keys were left inside or the vehicles were left unattended while running. Most often, these vehicles are then used to assist in committing further crimes in our communities.”
Theft is never the fault of the vehicle owner as that rests on the person who decided to enter into a life of criminality, he said.
“However, we do live in an age where everyone has to take responsibility to help prevent crime, particularly with their own property, and to play a role in keeping our communities safe,” he said.
“If we take transportation out of the equation, it makes it much more difficult for a criminal to do criminal things.”
