SUNDRE – The number of calls for service related to domestic disturbances received by the local RCMP detachment following a substantial pandemic spike has noticeably declined.
However, instances of domestic abuse and violence that Sundre’s Mounties are responding to nevertheless remain among the highest-frequency of calls received second only to property crime, the detachment’s commander said.
“Domestic violence is a concern in our area, as it would be with any other area that’s within Alberta or Canada,” Sgt. Trent Sperlie said during a recent interview in his office at the local detachment.
“Next to property crime, it’s probably our Number 2 for frequency,” Sperlie told the Albertan during a one-on-one conversation.
Yet in terms of thoroughly conducting investigations, the sergeant said that due to their nature, files involving domestic issues tend to be among the most time consuming.
“Some of them have a significant possibility to escalate into violence or beyond that if we’re not on the ball,” he said.
After all, differentiating between empty but angry threats – a bark bigger than one’s bite, so to speak – and a calm, otherwise well-mannered person on the verge of violently lashing out, is no easy feat for police officers, he said.
“It’s a huge load on the members’ shoulders,” he said. “They can’t predict when a crime’s going to happen; they can’t predict when somebody’s going to escalate.”
Officers faced with such situations must follow “very stringent steps” throughout the course of the investigation in an effort to evaluate the circumstances “and then make a determination from that,” he said.
Therein lies the rub.
“Not all domestic violence is going to result in the horrific homicide that we see in the news,” he said. “There’s so many domestic violence situations that are one-time things that it’s just a bad time in everybody’s life type of thing – that doesn’t excuse the behaviour, but it’s not the situation that’s going to turn into stalking or homicide.”
Behavioural patterns a red flag
However, unmistakable behavioural patterns that begin to emerge can be red flags.
“There’s no absolutes. Somebody who has a history of domestic abuse, doesn’t mean that they’re always going to be an abuser. We still have to look at that information and those flags,” he said.
“And they certainly become flags when you start seeing a history…if they’ve continued this pattern for this many years, why would I not think that they’re going to continue that in the future.”
But there are one-offs when those involved endured a difficult time in life such as the loss of a loved one or a job, and that the situation is ultimately settled through the court process and police never again hear from those involved, he said.
Domestic disturbance investigations can even include instances when two people have been separated for some time but have a history of domestic incidents.
“Possessiveness from offenders can become very dangerous, especially with stalking and things like that,” he said.
Victims can be reluctant to press charges
Additionally, it’s not uncommon for victims to be reluctant to press charges for any number of reasons, including fear of retribution from the abuser and desperately wanting to avoid making the situation worse, he said.
“That actually makes domestic violence investigations very unique and very difficult because in – I will say the vast majority of them – a lot of the victims are extremely hesitant to lay those charges; it could be fear, it could be anything,” he said.
“A lot of times, you’re dealing with a reluctant victim,” he said. “And blatantly obvious – in some of these investigations – that they are a victim.”
In such situations and when evidence found by police at the scene clearly indicates a crime has occurred, officers are required to lay charges regardless of whether the victim wants to, he said.
“The discretion in that area is gone – the members must lay that charge if the evidence exists. It’s to ensure that this isn’t a situation that’s going to escalate and that intervention can be made early, before it becomes something bigger than what it is,” he said.
“And if that evidence isn’t there, it’s a very difficult situation for the members. Because if they don’t have the evidence to lay a charge, they don’t have the authority as a police officer to put any conditions in place to separate them (a couple).”
Statistical breakdown
Providing a look at the statistics tracked by his department dating back to 2018, the sergeant said the data to an extent illustrates how victims can be reluctant to speak.
Receiving in the span of time since then an annual number of calls for service regarding domestic disturbances ranging between 58 and 105, the average number of charges actually laid every year remains fairly steady in the 20s.
In 2022, the Sundre RCMP received 66 calls of domestic violence, which includes vocal verbal altercations that cause enough concern for someone to call police but don’t necessarily yield evidence to warrant charges, he said.
“A lot of them are very heated arguments. When we’re done, all we have is a heated discussion. It’s the other half of them that aren’t,” he said.
“If there’s some form of violence occurring in this household when we show up this time and there’s any kind of a pattern or history, then I think we can conclude for the purpose of doing a risk assessment on that situation, that it’s probably been going on for a little while.”
He also described domestic abuse investigations as a scratch on the surface of much deeper circumstances, especially in instances when charges end up being laid.
“If we lay an aggravated assault charge, or assault with a weapon, or sexual assault with choking – that’s just the tip of that iceberg,” he said. “The history of the relationship, there’s a whole lot more that’s gone on there.”
Out of those 66 calls, 20 of them resulted in charges, he said, adding offences ranged from assault, uttering threats and overcoming resistance to commission of an indictable offence, to sexual assault, assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and aggravated assault.
“They’re all very significant charges that are laid in these investigations,” he said. “It’s not just assault.”
Looking at 20 charges compared with 66 calls in 2022, the sergeant said, “You can imagine what’s going on in the other (calls) where they’re (the victim) reluctant to give us the evidence.”
In 2021 amid the pandemic’s peak when victims were at increased risk of being at the mercy of their abusers, he said the department logged 105 calls involving domestic disputes, resulting in 25 charges being laid.
That at the time represented a substantial increase over 2020, when 81 calls for service to domestic incidents resulted in 26 charges. In 2019, there were 65 calls that eventually led to 28 charges. In 2018, 58 calls resulted in 20 charges, he said.
Asked how many of the habitual offenders that police in Sundre keep an eye on are the a result of domestic violence, the sergeant said after sifting through files in his computer there was one.
Repeat property offenders remain the primary culprits that police regularly monitor, he added.
But members are tasked with a file to follow up with any offender who ends up with court-imposed conditions such as curfew, house arrest or a no-contact order, he said, adding police will in the event a no-contact order has been issued also check up on the victim to ask whether the abuser has been contacting them.
Men aren’t always the abusers
Although women are statistically speaking at far greater risk of being victims of domestic abuse, men are not exclusively the abusers in every instance.
“The male victim, I don’t think, gets reported as often,” said Sperlie.
“In my 25 years, I’ve dealt with two male victims of domestic violence, and proven that they were victims,” he said, adding charges were in both of those instances laid against female offenders.
“And in one of the cases, it was horrific,” he said, going onto describe a male of small physical stature in a relationship with a much larger female partner.
“I can tell you that the trauma is no less in that situation than it is in the reversed roles. But you know, there’s the stoicism and things like that,” he said, referring to the societal stigma about men being expected to just suck it up.
“Men don’t want to come forward with things like that.”
And considering many women choose not to report domestic abuse, the situation in the case for men is “absolutely” worse, he said.
More mental health resources needed
Responding to a question about the notion that police officers are expected to carry out duties beyond their professional purview and that more funding should be allocated toward social programs and services such as mental health supports in an effort to target root causes of crime, the sergeant said, “police have continued to put hats on year after year after year.”
Not only are officers expected to be “Olympic athletes” who can “hit a bull’s eye at 500 metres,” they are also increasingly “expected to be psychologists and be able to deal with that person that’s having psychological trauma.”
The sergeant candidly said police have not been shy about pointing this out.
“Dealing with people that are in mental health crisis, for years we’ve been saying it’s not really our place,” he said, adding members are often sent to such situations “because in a lot of cases the person is violent or has assaulted somebody.
“But the reality is, the person’s in a mental crisis,” he said. “I’m not a mental health expert. So, we’ve been saying for years there needs to be something.”
Sperlie said he fully supports having available resources such as mental health workers responding to such calls with police backing them up to help alleviate the anxiety of a person who’s in crisis in the hopes of de-escalating the situation.
“If you talk to people that are in the health-care field, they agree that there’s policing, there’s health care, and there’s a gap that didn’t cover mental health. And we just jumped into that,” he said, reiterating that police have for years supported allocating funds into different types of intervention strategies.
“And we’ve done that,” he said, referring to the Regional Police Crisis Team (RPACT), which began operating in southern Alberta last March.
“We have a full-time member and a full-time nurse that work together full time,” he said, adding they can be called upon to respond when Mounties receive a call involving an element of health crisis.
Police will also attend to ensure the safety of health-care professionals attempting to de-escalate a person in crisis, but having a nurse on scene is crucial when deciding whether medical intervention might be required.
Asked if he would like to see more initiatives in the same vein, the sergeant without hesitation said, “100 per cent.”
The issue of mental health has been a longstanding policing issue across North America, he said, adding officers are but one aspect of a system of intervention that needs more resources.
