Crime in Bonnyville Trending Down

“Bonnyville is trending down,” states S/Sgt Luis Gandolfi, of the Bonnyville RCMP Detachment. The Staff Sergeant presented crime stats to Bonnyville Town Council at last night’s regular meeting and says for the most part crime levels are down from the previous year for the first quarter, January to April. S/Sgt Ganolfi noted that fraud was up, but that is typical of the time of year.

“Persons crimes have been lower than average for about a year now,” S/Sgt Gandolfi explains these crimes include homicides (0), robbery (1), sexual assaults (5), other sexual offenses (2), assaults (28), kidnapping (2), extortion (0), criminal harassment (6), uttering threats (6). A total of 50 persons crimes have been committed in 2016 thus far; during this time period last year and the year before, 85 of these offenses occurred.

“One of the offenses that we have seen an increase in lately, is fraud. We see quite a bit of that around tax season, people get phone calls from individuals pretending to be from the CRA or charitable groups, trying to tax advantage of people before tax season promising a tax receipt,” S/Sgt. Gandolfi says the detachment has been working hard with media to get information out on how to spot a scam. The best protection against falling victim to fraud is education. In 2016 the detachment has 45 fraud files, compared to only 17 in 2015 and 14 in 2014.

Drug files are slightly up from 2015, from 13 files to 22.  There has been zero drug production files opened, which is positive to the detachment; however both possession (13) and trafficking (8) have had an increase. S/Sgt Gandolfi says the force is keeping a watch on new threats, such as fentanyl and M-18 ( Metoprolol tartrate). M-18 is a new drug that has yet to hit the streets of Bonnyville (to the RCMP’s knowledge). The drug is very potent, S/Sgt Gandolfi says the detachment is aware of its dangers and on the watch for it entering the community.

The Bonnyville RCMP Detachment has identified four issues in its Policing Policies for 2016, which include:

• Traffic
  • The Bonnyville Detachment has aligned its operations with the traffic enforcement calendar. The calendar focuses on one major infraction each month, May is Distracted Driver month. The Detachment works on enforcing, reducing and educating the public on the dangers of distracted driving.
• Youth
  • The Detachment has members who visit the local schools and help build relationships with the youth. One way the RCMP worked on building its relationship with the youth community was through Odie’s Challenge Hockey Game.
• Substance Abuse
  • Educating the public and RCMP members on new drugs that are entering communities, as well as, enforcing drug laws. The Bonnyville Detachment works closely with Cold Lake, who has an intelligence team that helps find drug operations before they grow.
• Aboriginal
  • Due to the close proximity of nine Reserves and/or Metis Settlements, the RCMP work closely with these communities and have specific programming, education, and crime reduction tactics.

Reasons it may appear as though crime has gone up are attributed to the RCMP having better communication with the public and media; which was one of the areas the RCMP identified as improving.