Vehicle-related crime takes a jump in city
Police hampered by lack of funding as thefts and car break-ins on rise
It might be that cellphone left on your seat or that new dash-cam stuck to your dashboard. It could be as simple as those couple of loonies you left in your car’s cupholder after your morning coffee.
Whatever is tempting opportunistic crooks to break into your vehicle — or worse, steal it, — auto-related crime is on the rise in Edmonton.
Incidents jumped 21.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2016, compared with the same period in 2015.
Those 3,447 cases have put the Edmonton Police Service behind in its bid for a citywide two-percent reduction of vehicle crime over last year.
A steady decline in thefts of and from vehicles since a 2007 peak of 20,075 hit a low in 2012 — but those numbers have slowly been creeping up since 2013.
Between 2014 and 2015 there was a 14.4-per-cent increase in these crimes.
The poor economy, a young and ever expanding city that’s drawing new residents from across the country and the globe and organized crime could all be reasons for a spike in soft-target auto thefts.
And it could be a lot simpler than that, Edmonton Police Association president Sgt. Maurice Brodeur said.
“A lot of these petty crimes are generally fuelled by drug trade and activity,” Brodeur said.
“So theft from vehicles a lot of time is just people looking to fuel their fix.”
Whether that spike is enough to resuscitate the defunct Hot Wheels program — a dedicated program to combat car thefts that was cancelled in 2000 to free up resources for gang violence, but which during its heyday cut auto theft in half of what it was in the early 1990s — is up for debate.
“The city better give us some money,” Brodeur said.
“We asked for $15 million and the city responded, giving us $9 million over three years. So if you are just trying to keep your head above water, you’re not going to have a Hot Wheels program.
“There is a cost to everything, but there’s a consequence to everything.”
Ian O’Donnell, vice-president of the Downtown Edmonton Community League, is not surprised that downtown tops the list of neighbourhoods affected by vehicle crime the past 60 days.
O’Donnell said downtown offers criminals “a darker corner or a less visible space” to commit offences.
“Traditionally when the economy takes a dip, crime spikes,” he said.
“Car thefts are always a challenge downtown just because of the number of parkades, enclosed areas, condominiums and office towers.”
O’Donnell commended city police for proactive policing downtown and education campaigns to push back against the rising numbers.
The Edmonton Police Commission heard last that the number of drivers fleeing police spiked in 2015, with a 73-per-cent jump from 2014, because of an increase in the theft of vehicles.
There were 461 criminal flights in 2015 and, of those, 211 resulted in chases. Police Chief Rod Knecht estimated as many as 50 per cent of people who flee are driving stolen vehicles.