Williams Lake RCMP Insp. Jeff Pelley, officer in charge, provided his final police commission report for the city to council during the committee of the whole meeting Tuesday, March 30.
Pelley is leaving the detachment for a position as officer in charge of operations with the Kamloops RCMP and will transfer on April 8, 2021.
“In the last four-and-a-half years we’ve had the challenges of reducing crime and the negative image of the crime being very prevalent in Williams Lake and the crime severity index,” Pelley told council.
“We’ve gone from number three, down to five, down to seven consistently and I think as we move forward with our enforcement as well as our crime prevention strategies that we are set up to be out of the top 10 for the next year.”
He shared crime stats from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28, 2021, which showed a decrease in eight of 12 types of offences.
There were 1397 calls for service in Williams Lake and 207 calls for service in the rural areas. He said overall the calls for service were down 13 per cent from first two months of 2020.
Crime stats included assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm — four calls, down from nine offences in 2020.
Auto theft — nine offences, down from 2020 when there were 37 offences.
Theft from motor vehicles — 19 offences, compared to 65 offences in 202o.
“That was almost considered a pandemic last year,” Pelley said of theft from vehicles in 2020. “We were at 65 offences, given new offenders and offenders that were repeat and up-and-comers and we’ve reduced that by 75 per cent.”
Break and enter to businesses — five incidents, just less than six in 2020.
Break and enter to residences — eight offences, a decrease from 16 in 2020.
Robbery offences — three, up from two robbery offences in 2020.
Assaults increased to 41 offences from 29 in 2020.
Mischief decreased to 94 offences, from 134 in 2020.
Fraud offences decreased to 31 offences, down from 34 in 2020.
CDSA drug possession offences decreased with 16 offences compared to 20 in 2020.
CDSA drug trafficking numbered nine offences, less than the 13 offences in 2020.
Collisions — 58 incidents in 2021, compared to 52 in 2020 and impaired offences — 28 incidents in 2021 up from 21 in 2020.
For the month of February 55 curfew checks were done on 33 offenders and two identified breachers, Pelley said, noting RCMP are still identifying 14 prolific offenders with enforcement strategies and four of them have been arrested are in custody.
As of late Monday, March 29, it was confirmed there are five people currently on bail or sentence conditions required to be on electronic monitoring.
Mayor Walt Cobb thanked Pelley for his efforts while working in Williams Lake and wished him good luck.
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