Thompson RCMP detachment office-in-charge Insp. Brian Edmonds spoke to the Thomson Chamber of Commerce about policing Sept. 18, laying out a few statistics and outlining the policing priorities that guide their operations.
The detachment has 38 regular members, with at least five members on duty at any given time, as well as 12 administrative support staff. Most of them are in the early stages of their RCMP careers, as the average years of service for a Thompson RCMP detachment member is about eight-and-a-half, though that is skewed by some members like Edmonds, who has 29 years on the force.
“Of the 28 that are working on the watches [there are four watches consisting of a supervisor corporal and six constables], the service drops to three-and-a-half,” said Edmonds. “There are three or four members on each watch that probably have less than two years’ service.”
Thompson RCMP deal with an average of 425 calls for service per week, though that can grow to 500-plus or even more when there are events happening in town, such as Nickel Days this past June.
“My understanding this is the busiest on record that Thomson ever was,” Edmonds said. “In that seven-day period, we had 782 calls for service and we lodged 258 prisoners.”
In 2018, the detachment responded to 18,400 calls for service and was already at nearly 15,000 as of mid-September this year.
“We’re projected to exceed over 20,000 calls for service this year,” Edmonds said.
The number of prisoners lodged in 2019 is expected to wind up around 3,500, up 25 per cent from just under 2,800 in 2019. This year has also seen 2,242 youth charges so far, compared to a total of 2,744 in 20189.
“We’ll probably exceed 3,000 charges against young persons this year,” said Edmonds, who spent 12 years in Winnipeg before asking to be transferred to Thompson when his children finished high school and started attending university. He previously served at northern postings in Fort. St. John, B.C. and Whitehorse, Yukon.
The four current priorities for Thompson RCMP are crime reduction and organized crime, youth, Indigenous and vulnerable persons and communities, and road safety.
Edmonds says there are gangs involved in the drug trade in Thomson.
“We do have what I would call street-level gangs. There is the distribution of drugs at the gang level. We take that very seriously.”
Thompson’s general investigation section punches above its weight when it comes to getting drugs off the streets, says the inspector.
“We’re responsible sometimes for 40 to 50 per cent of the drugs being seized, whether it was cocaine, crack cocaine, in the province,” he said.
When it comes to youth, Edmonds said part of the strategy is to have officers, particularly community relations officer Const. Sandy Deibert, engage with children and youth to ensure they don’t get involved in crime in the first place.
“If we keep these children engaged and busy we’re hopeful that they’ll stay away from criminal activity,” he said.
Sometimes, intoxicated prisoners lodged by the RCMP are being detained for their own safety, he said.
“They are vulnerable to assaults, robberies,” said Edmonds.
Thompson has seen a jump in the number of Highway Traffic Act (HTA) offences dealt with since reinstituting a dedicated municipal road traffic position about eight months ago. The number of HTA offences this year already is greater than the number for all of 2018.
“The number of suspended, prohibited and unregistered vehicles in this town is unreal,” Edmonds said, recalling one shift when eight such vehicles were taken off the road. “Dealing with this type of offence at this level helps with other offences. If a bunch of people have access to a vehicle that’s unregistered and they’re committing whatever criminal offences, well that vehicle’s gone.”
Unsurprisingly, access to alcohol is a big factor in the number of crimes occurring in Thompson, as the number of offences dropped on Labour Day when the Liquor Mart was closed.
“There’s no one solely to blame but when we’re getting calls for an intoxicated person at 11 in the morning you’ve got to be asking yourself, how does this happen?” Edmonds said. “It’s a regular occurrence for us and once that first one comes in I guarantee there’ll be a handful right behind it.”
Closing his presentation by answering questions from chamber members, Edmonds said he wants people to report property crimes because RCMP are sometimes able to catch perpetrators in the act when suspicious s activities are reported promptly.
He also said that anyone who has to call for emergency help from the police should stay on the line until they reach a dispatcher.
“Please don’t hang up. All that does is bump you down the queue.”
The inspector isn’t the type to spend all his time in his office behind a desk, he says.
“I want to be out on the streets working alongside my members and different support agencies,” Edmonds says.
