Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife Mounties are concerned that reported incidents in the city are increasing toward numbers not seen since 2008.

RCMP Insp. Dave Elliott presented his year-end report on crime statistics to the city's municipal services committee Monday. He said officers have had to attend to more calls than previous years. - NNSL file photo

RCMP Insp. Dave Elliott presented his year-end crime statistics for 2011 to the municipal services committee last week. He told council members that there were 13,975 calls for service over the last year, which was up by about 1,000 calls from 2010.

"The numbers are getting up high again," he said. "The 2008 numbers were higher than in 2007, and in 2009 and 2010, the numbers of calls had dropped. But now they are coming up back up to those 2008 levels."

Elliott said a few numbers are notable, including assaults which continued to increase from 2010. There were four assault complaints per day in 2011. However the number of complaints that turned out to be unfounded has increased as well.

"What is happening more is that people are calling thinking they are hearing people getting beaten up, but when our members get there, they find out that this isn't happening," said Elliott. He also told council that this did not mean that residents should not be vigilant if they hear something suspicious.

"I am just trying to explain how we are seeing more. We would rather be there to try to stop somebody from doing something than having to pick up the pieces after or seeing the situation escalate to something worse."

Elliott reported there had been 237 calls for break and enters, which was up from 196 the previous year.

"We realize that this is sometimes due to social issues in the community," he said, pointing out that many of the incidents that police are dealing with involve liquor. He estimated about 52 per cent of all calls in the last year were due to causing a disturbance, most often having to do with people yelling and screaming and being drunk in a public place.

"Even though we would always like to do more to improve social issues, often we just can't," Elliott said.

While there had been no fatal traffic collisions last year, the number of calls for vehicle collisions seem to be increasing. He noted that there were 347 in 2009, 331 in 2010. In 2011 that figure jumped up to 436. While he cannot predict what 2012 may bring, Elliott said the start of the new year has been busy for collisions.

"Since Jan. 1, there have been about 35 collisions so we are asking people to slow down and be careful," he said.

"Streets are getting pretty slippery and we were definitely getting a big increase in traffic collisions in the first three weeks of the month."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.