Staff Sgt. Eric Black fields questions from the public during an RCMP town hall meeting at the Servus Sports Centre. Jeannette Benoit-Leipert
Members of the Lloydminster RCMP recently invited the public to join them at the Servus Sports Centre for a town hall meeting.
A wide range of topics were discussed and RCMP members invited questions from those in attendance.
“Today is very interactive, so if you have a question please ask it. We do these town halls usually a couple times a year; more if needed,” said Lloydminster RCMP detachment commander Brian Nicholl.
“At the beginning of the year we do it to try and solicit information, as to what the problems are in the community, and this one is a bit of an update on what we’ve done with the feedback.”
At the outset of the meeting, Sgt. Brad Mouland reviewed the APP (Annual Performance Plan) put in place for Lloydminster.
“Every detachment across the RCMP, from Victoria to St. John’s, Newfoundland does the exact same annual performance plan. It’ll have different goals for the year,” Mouland explained.
“We want to create focused goals with clear actions. We outline our daily tasks and actions with community priorities, demonstrating the achievement or measurable results.”
He said their goals and priorities are determined by many different groups of people, all local.
“The City of Lloydminster contributes to our priorities. Lloydminster residents—so that’s you folks. Anything you may bring up here, at anything such as this or at any other time of the year,” said Mouland.
Cpl. Murray Aldred of the Lloydminster serious crime unit and crime reduction unit gave those in attendance a better idea of some of the methods used to reduce crime in the Border City.
Earlier this year, residents may have noticed a helicopter hovering over certain areas of Lloyd. Cpl. Aldred explained why.
“You probably would have seen the helicopter we had in the city. We brought in crime reduction teams from Saskatchewan, some of our district team came down to work with our own team. We had several resources in town—dog unit,” said Aldred.
“That was to target the high-crime areas for four days, and disrupt, dismantle and take care of crime and reduce it and let (offenders) know we’re here to stop the crime.”
During that time, they laid 29 charges, executed three search warrants, made 30 arrests and cracked down on traffic offences as well.
“We also brought in traffic units to take care of that, and we were just trying to target people with no insurance, no registration—those types of things that are hurting other drivers, when you get into claims and don’t have insurance,” said Aldred.
The crime reduction unit also works with the homeless community, taking a proactive approach.
“We did an initiative in the downtown area this year—where all the construction was going on, because homeless people were getting in behind businesses and causing a lot of grief for businesses, so part of that initiative was doing extra patrols, more patrols and just trying to keep them (the homeless) out of the area,” explained Aldred.
Another area that was bringing in complaints was the area around the Servus Sports Centre.
“There’s been a lot of issues with kids in the parking lot. Burning donuts and playing loud music and throwing garbage all over,” said Aldred.
“One of the initiatives we did was constant patrols into the parking lot and hammer them with tickets until they stopped coming here. I think we did $18,000 worth of tickets the one week, because the kids just weren’t getting the message.”
Those are just a few examples of the initiatives the RCMP have put in place to help reduce crime in Lloyd.
“These are proactive initiatives. We can stop and switch gears right away if we need to,” said Commander Nicholl.
“The crime reduction unit has been very good at that.”
