ATHABASCA – Local RCMP leaders continued their quarterly tradition of presenting politicians with up-to-date crime stats with an early December stop at the Athabasca County council chambers.
Staff Sgt. Mark Hall, and sergeants Lee Simpkins and Gavin Bergey spent part of their morning Dec. 10 highlighting what their detachments had been working on, and what trends they were seeing in their numbers.
“We had a pretty good quarter,” said Hall, who leads the Athabasca detachment. “We focused on break and enters, and habitual offenders, that seems to be where we’ve had most of our success.”
The Athabasca RCMP cover half the county, alongside the M.D. of Opportunity and Calling Lake, so the numbers aren’t only reflective of the county’s crime rate. The officers responded to 72 break and enters in the second quarter, which runs from July 1 to Sept. 30.
Hall said the detachment had hoped to reduce B&Es to 150 over the entire year, but had fallen behind their targets.
“I would like to see zero, but we’re still going to get a few of them,” said Hall. “As far as habitual offenders go, we’re at about a 77 per cent compliance rate, which is up from last time. These guys are either trying to be good, or we’re catching them before they do something bad.”
Hall also provided updates on two ongoing files; the Mounties are still investigating the Nov. 18 fatal accident that killed a 14-year-old boy, and Hall said they had reopened the search for Lorraine Popowich, who was first reported missing May 7.
“We had some information that we followed up on, we brought the search team in again, alongside some extensive resources,” he said. “We unfortunately still didn’t find her in that area there, and it is something we will probably hit up again in the springtime once the snow is gone.”
Bergey was appearing in his new role as the operations sergeant for Athabasca after working in the Boyle area for the last three years.
Sgt. Dennis Properzi, Boyle’s detachment leader, was unable to make the meeting after he got called away just prior, but he did provide a written report.
“Relations between RCMP and partner agencies remains strong and supportive of one another in the area,” wrote Properzi, who also said his police officers were continuing to be active and present in the community.
The Boyle detachment, which serves an area as far north as Wandering River all the way to Buffalo Lake in the south, had 44 persons crimes in the quarter; eight assault investigations were conducted, with all but one being domestic in nature, and 10 assault by weapons files were opened. While the weapons varied — the files include assaults by car, broomstick, hammer and hatchet — the majority were incidents between people that already knew each other, instead of stranger-on-stranger crime.
Property crime was more common, with 92 incidents in 2024, an eight per cent drop from the 100 files in 2023’s Q2.
Six businesses were broken into in the quarter, alongside four cottages and three residences; none of the break and enters occurred in the Village of Boyle. Instead, three were in Wandering River, two were in the Buffalo Lake area, two were in Caslan, and five were at rural businesses.
On the traffic side of things, Simpkins was happy to report a lack of intoxicated drivers, with only one criminally impaired driver being caught in the last three months.
“We screened over 90 drivers at a (Dec. 7) road check, and we only received four digital readings indicating there was alcohol in their body, and all were below the threshold for a sanction,” he said. “Accolades to the drivers out there, we didn’t end up with any stats that night, so that’s good on the communities part.”
Simpkins said tickets for alcohol and cannabis were on the rise, which included unpackaged cannabis and liquor within reach of drivers. The traffic officers also handed out 46 seatbelt tickets, 18 distracted driving tickets, 191 speeding tickets, and 61 other miscellaneous tickets, including for failing to stop at a stop sign, or driving while unauthorized.
“Thank you all very much for what you do,” said Coun. Gary Cromwell, who wished Gavin Bergey well in his new role in Athabasca.
“I’m sure you’re going to be very happy with him. I’m sorry we’re losing him from my part of the county, but congratulations to the rest that gain him.”
