A Friday or Saturday nightshift for Yellowknife's Mounties is a world of DIPPs, domestics, and keeping the peace. Kevin Wilson, Yellowknifer's police reporter, spent the last two weekends riding along with the police for the night shift to get a cop's-eye view.
Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (May 16/01) - It's blessedly quiet for a Saturday night. Not that any of the officers on duty will say so.
Cpl. Brian Glover doesn't want to jinx the night by saying outright that things are going well.
"That's the one thing you never say when you're on with another member -- it's quiet'," says Glover.
Glover is the corporal on watch this Saturday. He and a handful of Mounties are charged with keeping the peace in Yellowknife this particular evening. From 10 p.m. until 3 a.m., the 19-year veteran of the RCMP and the "members" under him will patrol the city.
Glover's reasons for not wanting to jinx the quiet evening are simple enough. All too often, it's not very quiet on the weekends.
"There's never a lot of time to sit around," he says.
"We do everything. Lots of follow-up work, interviewing people, arrests. There's always some work to do."
More importantly, when it gets busy, the level of danger ratchets up. And as far as Glover is concerned, safety for the members working under him, and the public is paramount.
Working in pairs
Glover has six constables at his disposal. They used to patrol one to a squad car. The death of Jurgen Seewald has helped to change that. Seewald was shot to death answering a domestic dispute call alone in Cape Dorset.
Where possible, the members now patrol in pairs. As shift supervisor, Glover goes out alone, but he mostly operates as backup.
On some nights, there may only be two members working. Other officers are on call if backup is required, but waiting for a member to arrive on the scene when you're in the middle of a situation can seem like an eternity.
Constables Mary Lane and Tamara Bellamy were in just such a situation not very long ago. The two officers were responding to a domestic dispute call that went haywire last December. A woman called police, afraid that her common-law husband was going to become violent.
When Lane and Bellamy arrived, they asked the man to step outside so they could talk to him. It's standard procedure in domestic dispute calls to separate the complainant from the other person. It gives police an opportunity to sort out the disparate sides to the story.
More importantly, complainants are more likely to open up if their assailant can't see what's happening.
The man, who had been drinking, became progressively more agitated. The temperature was 30 below, and Lane asked the man to step into the car.
"Am I under arrest?" the man demanded to know.
"If you don't calm down, I'll put you under arrest for causing a disturbance," Lane told him.
During the ensuing struggle, Lane and Bellamy were unable to put handcuffs on the man. They finally managed to get him into the squad car, without handcuffs, while the complainant watched from the porch of the apartment building.
Bellamy went towards her to make her go inside. That's when the man started kicking the window out of the squad car. The woman then lunged at Bellamy.
Bellamy was wearing gloves lined with Kevlar, but during the struggle, the woman managed to bite through one of her gloves.
Backup was summoned, but it took 15 minutes to arrive. Stories like Seewald's and the one above are just two of the reasons that police try to nip problems before they start.
Alcohol a major factor
"By being proactive, you don't get the assaults and domestics that you normally get," says Glover.
That means patrolling the streets while the bars are open and getting visibly intoxicated people off the street. Early in the shift, Glover says that alcohol is a factor in "90 to 95 per cent" of the incidents that police respond to.
True to his word, booze plays a part in all but one call.
Trolling in the alley behind the Gold Range, Glover spots a man staggering towards 50th Street. He swings into action. Glover pulls up close to the man and in a fluid motion, quickly gets out of the car.
"What's your name," he asks the man. After a brief exchange, he tells the man that he's under arrest for being drunk in a public place.
The man objects, but doesn't resist.
"C'mon," Glover tells him. "You can barely walk."
The man is brought into the detachment cells and booked as a DIPP -- drunk in public place. Glover says police usually keep DIPPs in the drunk tank for eight hours to sleep it off. However, "we try to keep them until after the bars close.
Throughout the course of the night, Glover will put away a half dozen or so DIPPs, respond to a backup call to break up a fight between two drunken women in an apartment building, respond to a burglar alarm, and keep a keen eye on the outflow downtown as the bars close up shop for the night.
Everything that the members do is entered into a computer program called SPURS (Statistical Police Uniform Reporting System).
SPURS keeps a running tally on everything the members respond to.
The program ensures that there's a record of every call answered, every action taken. It's how police justify their staffing levels.
Yellowknife Detachment commander Terry Scott says that two years ago, he had to cope with a "significant" reduction in his budget. This year, he's making do with the same budget as last year, with no adjustments for inflation.
At the same time, Yellowknife's population is growing, and a booming economy has put a strain on resources. There's lots of money in town, whether it's mining money, beneficiary money, or whatever other sources.
Yellowknife detachment commander Terry Scott says he wouldn't mind having "four or five more members out on the streets."
At 3 a.m., Glover heads back to the detachment and hits the office. Const. Lane greets him there and asks him how his night was. He finally allows that it was "pretty quiet out there."
"Why don't you come back next Friday?" Lane asks a bystander.
"Fridays are always pretty busy."
In Friday's Yellowknifer police reporter Kevin Wilson continues his cop's-eye view of Yellowknife, as the ride-a-long continues on a Friday night.
