The message of ‘Don’t drink and drive’ appears to have made an impact on most drivers in Salmon Arm.
In the last three months of 2017, three people were charged with impaired driving, as opposed to 17 in the last quarter of 2016.
“Numbers are down, we’ve noticed that,” said Staff Sgt. Scott West, while presenting his year-end, quarterly policing report to city council. “We’ve watched our impaired drivers drop; there are more designated drivers than ever before.”
The numbers for immediate roadside prohibitions (IRPs) were higher in 2017 than the criminal code charges, 15 in the last quarter of 2017 and 18 in the same period in 2016.
West said local police are going more with the provincial Motor Vehicle Act roadside prohibitions rather than pushing charges through the courts. The provincial government introduced the IRP program in 2010 with the goal of reducing impaired driving fatalities in the province.
Police did 311 traffic stops in the last three months of 2017, with 43 high-risk driving charges laid such as distracted driving and excessive speed.
Regarding the Trans-Canada Highway, West recounted how a driver was pulled over for a cell phone ticket, but the officer smelled pot in the vehicle and so the driver was charged with that, then a handgun was discovered as well as several more charges from other jurisdictions.
“It’s wondrous what we have rolling through our community,” he quipped.
Related link: Mental health calls tax police resources
Coun. Tim Lavery asked about mental health-related calls, inquiring if the number of calls has improved since a year ago.
West said he hasn’t done research why, but “we’ve noticed a reduction over levels from not last summer but the summer before. We were seeing quite a number of mental health calls – both us and the hospital were at a point of having to shift people elsewhere, sometimes five files a day.”
He said the critical care phase wasn’t reached in 2017 where police were intervening and taking people to hospital.
In terms of violent crime in Salmon Arm, West said it’s down over previous years, but vehicle crime is up.
Although he didn’t provide overall numbers for violent crime, he did say the statistics are showing a “typical cyclical fall trend downward,” and the 2017 stats are lower than 2015 and 2016 levels.
Assaults for the last quarter of 2017 were tallied at 10, with 17 in the same period of 2016.
Sexual offences and domestic violence are recorded separately. There were four sexual offences recorded in the last three months of 2017, compared to two in the same period in 2016. Twenty-three domestic violence files were recorded in the last quarter of 2017, with 28 in the last three months of 2016.
Related link: Driving infractions top the list in 2016
Mischief to property and thefts from vehicles were up, while reports of break and enters to residents and businesses remained low, West said.
There were 33 thefts from vehicles recorded in the last quarter of 2017, similar to 2016’s 29. Just two break and enters to homes and businesses were recorded in October through December of 2017, down one from the three recorded in the same period in 2016.
Files involving alcohol and/or drugs tallied the highest numbers in the last quarters of both 2017 and 2016 – 174 in 2017 and 190 in 2016.
Overall in 2017, police received 5,208 calls for service, up five per cent over 2016 and up eight per cent over 2015.
@SalmonArm
marthawickett@saobserver.net
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