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Monday, June 6, 2011 www.metronews.ca News worth sharing.
Police pushed to the limit
Louise McKay, lead interpreter at Rutherford House Historic House, sizes up her croquet shot yesterday at the site’s 100th anniversary celebration.
Alberta’s force strength, measured by officers per capita, is second-lowest behind the country’s smallest province Officers per capita a symptom of funding need and image decline, Edmonton Police Association president says SHELLEY WILLIAMSON
@METRONEWS.CA
SHELLEY WILLIAMSON/METRO
Rutherford House hits 100 The day’s events included a Founder’s Day Tea, elm tree planting and salute to the Rutherford School’s Grade 6 grads.
The city’s staggering homicide numbers may not be cause for fear for the average citizen, but the ratio of police officers to people should, say those who study and represent cops. With detectives still on the scene of the city’s 25th homicide, the Edmonton Police Service’s acting Chief David Korol addressed murder rates last week, downplaying risk for most citizens. “If you are an Edmontonian who goes about your everyday business in a normal fashion, you are very safe,” he said, dubbing most current cases “known-onknown.” While Sgt. Tony Simioni, pres-
ident of the Edmonton Police Association, agrees most of the year’s murders have drug, alcohol and “lifestyle” links, lack of staffing should sound alarms. “We are the second-lowest (police to people) behind P.E.I.,” said Simioni of the Alberta police rate. He links Edmonton’s lack of officers to a trend in cops retiring and challenges in attracting new city recruits. “It’s not as attractive a career as it used to be,” he said, citing work-life balance issues and scrutiny of police in the media. “We have barely kept pace with filling positions.” But a “real inequity in federal funding” for police bucks for cities is also at fault, he said. “Citizens have to ask the ques-
Stats Canada numbers As of May 15, 2010, Canada had 69,300 police officers, up by nearly 2,000 from 2009. Alberta had the second-lowest cops-per-capita at 177, with Edmonton at 166.
tion, ‘Why are we not policing the city even to the median of the country?’” said Simioni. Bill Pitt, Grant MacEwan University criminologist, calls the low ratio a Canadian trend. Pitt estimates over the past nine years Edmonton has seen 100 more homicides than Calgary, a fact he says stems from its increasingly violent landscape.