RCMP held an open house on Feb. 22 to talk to the Edgewood community about their investigation into an attempt to cut down a hydro pole near a house party and a suspicious fire that followed.
The events of the Jan. 28 weekend were the catalyst in leading the RCMP to address escalating tensions in the area.
On Jan. 28, Alejandro Calderon was arrested and charged with several offences, including breach of undertaking, mischief, uttering threats to cause bodily harm, and assault with a weapon after a suspect attempted to cut down a hydro pole during a nearby house party.
Shortly after, either late Jan. 29 or early Jan. 30, a house that the accused in the hydro pole incident was building for his 75-year-old mother was burned to the ground, killing at least one of her five pets. That fire is still under active investigation. The cause has not yet been determined, but was deemed suspicious.
RCMP had been getting numerous calls a day in regard to the incidents, so rather than deal with individual phone calls on the same subject it was decided to host a town meeting to dispel any rumours, misconceptions, and misunderstandings.
It was standing-room-only in the gym as members of the community asked questions and voiced their concerns. One of the questions brought up was what residents should do if Alejandro Calderon returns to the community.
Const. Lee Bellamy of the Nakusp RCMP said residents are to call RCMP and they will attend as fast as they can.
Const. Bellamy was surprised at how many people attended the meeting.
“I was probably expecting 30-40 people, and we were at least double that,” he said.
Bellamy has been with the Nakusp RCMP for about a year and a half and has noticed a significant increase in calls to Edgewood in the last year.
A good portion of the meeting dealt with the suspect in the hydro pole incident, as there had been several calls regarding that case and the aftermath, and Const. Bellamy wasn’t surprised.
“That was kind of the catalyst that started this whole thing,” he said. “As much as the meeting was not to be focused on that incident and Alejandro, that was the main concern of the community, so it kept getting drawn back to it, and that was to be expected.”
Because Edgewood is an hour away from Nakusp, getting to the community in a timely manner can sometimes be difficult. Having only three members currently on the force doesn’t help things either, RCMP said. This number will soon increase to four as the new corporal is set to arrive in Nakusp in a matter of weeks.
Residents at the meeting were pleased to hear about this increase in numbers.
“I understand how difficult it is for them to cover so much outlying areas with such a small police force,” said Alice Rawlins. “I think this is something that the attorney general and provincial government needs to address in allowing more police enforcement in small communities, a budget to have a larger police force, because I don’t think ours is the only community with a problem.”
Several ideas for how to keep residents safe and informed were discussed, including a neighbourhood watch.
Calderon’s next scheduled court appearance is March 7 in Nelson.
