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Wednesday, October 19, 2022 s
Frustrations expressed at RCMP town hall in Ryley Jana Semeniuk Staff Reporter
An RCMP town hall was presented Oct. 12 in Ryley by Sergeant Charles Brown with the Tofield police detachment, to a crowd of more than 30 who shared frustration with their current policing. Brown began the meeting by sharing crime statistics of the area showing that Tofield had the highest level of crime, Holden was in the middle, and Ryley had the lowest of the three. Brown said, in a later email, that for at least the past 10 years the Tofield detachment has had only six police officers covering all three areas. Residents shared stories of repeated incidents of victimization through theft, harassment, and witnessing violence, that has left them feeling vulnerable and ignored. One resident, who
Sergeant Charles Brown speaks at Ryley. identified herself as Lorraine, questioned how only six police officers can cover such a large area adequately, given how much more crime is happening in Tofield than the other outlying areas. “If you have a higher (level) of theft in
Tofield, everyone else kind of gets left out especially the rural communities,” she said. Brown said the government’s current ratio of officers to communities is based on population and is not a good model for rural communities. He went on
to describe a similar situation in Lac La Biche where the crime level was high, and the community helped by hiring their own pair of police officers. Brown worked in Lac La Biche before coming to Tofield earlier this year. Meanwhile, another
resident shared her story of an unstable neighbour trying to get into her home and witnessing their violence on the street. She said repeated calls to RCMP did not solve the issue. “There’s probable drug use (by the neighbour) and we have a
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three-year-old,” said the resident. “There are three or four houses in town that are heavily involved in drugs. The problems are getting worse and worse. They are getting away with drugs and violence.” The resident expressed Continued on Page 17
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