SUNDRE – Recent town halls hosted by the Sundre RCMP throughout the area offered attendants an overview of statistical trends as well as an update on the roll-out of body-worn cameras.
The Sundre RCMP's four public engagement sessions were held at the James River Hall, the Bergen Hall, as well as the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #223 in Sundre. Another open house was hosted at the Harmattan hall along with the detachment commanders from Olds and Didsbury also present on behalf of Mountain View County.
Only a few people including Town of Sundre Mayor Richard Warnock attended the March 11 session in Sundre.
Cpl. Courtney Harding, the detachment's acting commander, discussed body cameras and some concerns that have been expressed by the public with respect to policy guiding the use of the devices as well as privacy protection and dealing with circumstances involving gender-based violence like domestic disputes or sexual assaults.
“Those are very sensitive situations, we need to be mindful when it comes to the cameras,” said Harding.
But generally speaking, the cameras are activated even before officers step out of their vehicles upon arriving at a call for service, she said.
And if someone approaches an officer out in public to report a crime, the member will activate the camera. However, when for example knocking at someone’s door in following up on an investigation, the member must disclose the camera’s use and request permission, she said.
“We have to be lawfully placed in order to use these cameras, or we have to seek permission to use them,” she said. “We have to be respectful of people’s privacy.”
That being said, she added, “if it’s for an emergency purpose or a complaint, of course we’re going to have them on because we have to and nobody at that point in time can order us to turn them off.”
The corporal also clarified the devices will not be used for surveillance purposes as a matter of public trust and accountability.
“The public needs to know that we’re not out there surveilling them with this equipment,” she said.
“If we need to do surveillance, we have other means to do it, and honestly, they’re better means – usually covert. So whoever we’re looking at or surveilling won’t know that that’s what we’re doing. And that’s exactly what we want, because we need to be able to gather that evidence to write a search warrant and execute it.”
Any videos that have been recorded throughout an officer’s shift is at the end of the day uploaded into a cloud where the file is to be archived for two years, she said in response to a question.
If a member of the public has a complaint about an officer’s conduct during the course of an investigation or call for service, that person may request access to the video and Harding said they could initiate that process with their detachment’s commander who must follow privacy regulations and vet the video’s content first.
The new devices represent an additional annual expense to the taxpayer of about $3,000 per member, she said.
“It is a little bit expensive, but it’s worth it even just for evidence purposes.”
The corporal also covered some statistical trends.
Total criminal code files were down a bit by four per cent year-over-year to 652 in 2024 from 679 in 2023, and down eight per cent since 2020 when there were 712 files.
While assaults were up 11 per cent year-over-year to 79 in 2024 from 71 in 2023, they were overall down 18 per cent from a peak of 96 in 2020.
Break and enters were also up by 11 per cent year-over-over to 51 in 2024 from 46 in 2023, but overall down 14 per cent over the last five years with a peak of 65 in 2021.
Arsons were up 60 per cent year-over-year to eight in 2024 from five in 2023, with a peak of 10 in 2022. The corporal said those were not random incidents and were largely targeted.
With the most recently available statistics dating to 2023, youths charged under the Criminal Code including persons and property offences totalled nine. One was mischief, with two files of uttering threats and two break and enters. Six of the offences were categorized as assault.
Meanwhile, there were a total of 91 charges for adults.
“Thankfully, our youth here is really good,” said Harding. “We get the odd stunting complaint, traffic-related complaints, kids driving over the foot bridge to the high school – just odd little blips.”
There were also a couple of bullying complaints from the high school police were involved in, she added.
“We’ve had a couple troubled youth, just with difficult home situations where certainly we’ve had to intervene.”
