RCMP reports only small increase in cases for Swift Current during three-month period

There was only a small increase in cases dealt with by the RCMP detachment in Swift Current during the three-month period until the end of November, but some offences remain an ongoing concern.

Sgt. Kelly Guider from the Swift Current RCMP municipal detachment made a presentation about the community policing report during a regular City council meeting that took place via video conference, Dec. 14. The detachment’s school liaison officer, Const. Tony Curti, also participated in the discussion.

Sgt. Guider presented statistics for the three-month period from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30. The detachment dealt with 1,683 files during this time. This represented an increase of only 125 files over the previous year for the same period and a slightly higher increase compared to two years ago.

Officers laid 10 impaired driving charges for this three-month period compared to 12 and 11 for the same period in the previous two years.

“I think we've had more charges per file, in that in previous years we've had a higher number of complaints coming in of impaired drivers, but they still resulted in around the same amount of arrests and charges,” he said.

There were 91 vehicle accidents during this period compared to 121 last year. According to Guider the legalization of cannabis has not been a significant fact in vehicle accidents.

“At least nothing that we've been able to measure,” he said. “Our impaired driving still primarily is alcohol related. We do have one charge that's been laid in this threemonth period that was impairment by drug.”

The Swift Current RCMP detachment used a drug recognition expert during that process of charging the individual for impaired driving while under the influence of a drug.

“It's an officer who is trained to recognize not only that somebody is impaired by drug, but they can categorize what type of drug,” he explained. “So it's very specific training. We're lucky that in the Swift Current area, we currently have three different drug recognition experts that we can call upon for these files.”

He referred to the number of cases under the category for provincial statutes, which include alcohol regulation, mental health and all other provincial statutes. There were 127 cases in this three-month period. This was significantly lower compared to 168 last year and 145 for the same period in 2018. The number of charges laid were still similar. There were 20 charges laid as opposed to 17 last year and 16 the previous year.

He also had positive news with regard to drug trafficking cases in the community during this three-month period. There were 10 cases and charges were laid in four of those cases. Last year for this period there were 13 cases with 10 charges laid.

“We've seen a decline in the number of charges for trafficking in hard drugs in our community over this period, but unfortunately I think in the next quarter you're going to hear results from us, because we've had a couple of successful search warrants here in early December already,” he cautioned.

The RCMP laid two drug possession charges during this period compared to four charges last year, and there was a total of eight cases to investigate drug possession.

It takes a lot of time and effort by officers to investigate drug trafficking crime files. They received five judicial authorizations for search warrants of cell phones during this three-month period.

“We get a lot of information back in regards to the drug trade,” he said about these warrants. “Who's involved, what the connections are, how many drugs are being moved, where the drugs are coming in from. So those warrants are really important. We don't highlight those in the other stats, because often times they support charges that were already laid, but there's a lot of work that goes into it and it helps with the prosecution to hold the people who are bringing the poison into our community accountable.”

Warrants were also issued from September to November that allowed officers to execute searches at three residences in Swift Current.

“And in all three search warrants for residences we were able to obtain drug seizures, weapons and cash out of all the residences,” he said. “So pretty good numbers at that point.”

According to Guider the drug situation in Swift Current is not getting worse, which from his perspective can be considered to be a measure of progress. Their investigations during the past year indicated that some individuals with connections to organized crime were moving into the community to sell drugs. An individual from Alberta with no criminal record, but who worked for organized crime, was arrested in the city in early June.

“It was somebody who was basically just hired by the group to come here and distribute their poison,” he said. “We were able to bring that person into custody. Charges are still pending before the court and because of what we learned out of the search warrant at the individual's vehicle and their property, we gained a lot of information and hopefully that hard work and those charges have stopped that group from wanting to continue to set up here.”

Unfortunately, criminal groups might consider Swift Current to be a potential market where they can make money for as long as there are still individuals in the community who are addicted to drugs.

“I don't think that it has gotten worse, so I think that's a huge plus, because a lot of the other cities in Saskatchewan have seen what can happen when you have some of these out of province organized groups moving in,” he said. “They're very hard to track, it will be extremely difficult in the future if they get set up, because they switch out their distributors, they switch out vehicles, and it becomes a really lengthy, hard investigation.

He added that the RCMP will continue to investigate drug activities in the community and they will use the information gained from previous cases.

“What we're thankful for right now is I think we've got a good understanding of where the drugs are coming from, who are doing the selling, and we're working those cases and one by one we're getting those individuals charged,” he said.

He noted that the work of the Drug Strategy Task Force in Swift Current is contributing to their success, because it helps to reduce the need here for those drugs.

“And it has to be both sides,” he said. “Enforcement is certainly not the sole answer, but we definitely want people to be scared to come here and try and sell those drugs.”

Sgt. Guider said the RCMP has not noticed any particular spikes in crime that can be related to the COVID-19 situation.

“Most recently, over the last month with bars and liquor stores having to close early and also with the reduced amount of seating at a table at some of these outlets, it definitely played a factor in how many calls perhaps that we get that are related to alcohol use late at night,” he said. “Those numbers have certainly gone down.”

His only concern is the potential impact that the pandemic situation could have on domestic violence, due to the closing of schools, the impact on the economy, and people who might have addiction issues.

“We didn't at first, but over these last number of months I feel that there's been a bit of an increase,” he said.

He added that the statistics for assaults do not differentiate between whether it was a fight in a street or elsewhere, or whether it is domestic related, but all high-risk files and any domestic files that come in are reviewed by him or one of the other supervisors, and they have seen an amount that the did not see in previous months. They did not see many in the spring or summer, but now they see a handful. Of the 42 cases, perhaps between eight and 10 would have been domestic violence.

“It is just not a good number,” he said. “We don't want to see a rise in that area.”

Const. Curti spoke about his efforts to connect with students during the pandemic. His challenge has been that students will now go directly to their classrooms, and he therefore approached teachers to ask if he can join students in their classrooms.

“So I hop into classes and I either take part in the class itself, whatever they're working on that day,” he said. “If the teacher allows, I'm part of their class, I'm participating in class discussions.”

This has allowed him to continue to connect with students and he is also able to have more interaction with teachers. He therefore felt positive about his ability to continue to carry out his role as a school liaison officer during the pandemic.

“I'm forming new alliances with the kids that way, and I'm actually making friends with the teachers,” he said. “A lot of them actually I'm just becoming friends with them on a personal level just because I'm in their classrooms and I'm learning about them and they're learning about me, and it's really kind of opening a whole new set of doors for me. … So far this year has been different and really way better than I thought actually.”