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Police handled over 1,200 calls and occurrences in July

The Estevan Police Service had its busiest month of the year in July, as it handled 1,246 calls for service and occurrences, according to numbers released at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Estevan board of police commissioners.
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The Estevan Police Service had its busiest month of the year in July, as it handled 1,246 calls for service and occurrences, according to numbers released at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Estevan board of police commissioners.

The data shows the EPS has now handled 5,126 calls for service so far this year, compared with 4,749 in the first seven months of 2018, or a 7.9 per cent increase.

In July 2018, the EPS had 737 calls for service.

In his report, police chief Paul Ladouceur admitted he had a hard time pinpointing why the call volumes were up so much.

“We did do a traffic safety blitz, and when members issue a violation, that creates an occurrence as well, so that would have some impact on it,” said Ladouceur.

The officers involved with the traffic blitz gave out more warnings than tickets during the blitz, but Ladouceur said warnings aren’t counted as occurrences unless it was something unique.

There have been increases in break and enters and other infractions.

As far as Criminal Code charges are concerned, the EPS had six crimes against the person in July, with all six being assaults. In the first seven months of the year, there were 62 crimes against people. Fifty-three of those calls have been assaults. There have been four sexual crimes and assaults causing bodily harm each, and one attempted murder.

Twenty-four charges in July were for crimes against property, with 10 for mischief or wilful damage, nine for theft under %,000, three for residential break and enters and two for thefts of a vehicle. So far this year, the EPS has handled 168 crimes against property, with 74 for theft under $5,000, 64 for mischief or wilful damage and 21 for break and enters.

Six charges were issued under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act last month, with three each for trafficking and possession. So far this year, there have been 18 such charges.

The EPS had 21 charges for Criminal Code Traffic Violations, with 18 for impaired or exceeding-related offences, and three for impairment by drug. Eighty-nine charges have been issued for the first seven months of the year, with 70 for impaired or exceeding related offences, 12 for impaired by drug and seven for dangerous driving or other.

There were no charges under the Cannabis Act in July.

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The monthly report from Special Const. Josie Palmer, who is the city’s bylaw enforcement officer, showed that she handled 161 occurrences and calls.

Fifty-seven of them were for unkempt property inspections, and 30 were animal calls.

Among the other calls were 18 parking violations, 12 parking complaints and 11 cat traps.

So far this year, Palmer has handled 920 calls, with 198 for animal calls, 148 for parking violations, 125 for parking complaints, 191 for unkempt property violations, 81 for snow removal notices and 77 classified as other bylaw calls.

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Ladouceur pointed out they have encountered some challenges with their vehicle fleet in recent months, as the transmission has gone on three of their vehicles. A couple of the vehicles are approaching 200,000 kilometres, and the EPS likes to replace them at around 200,000-250,000 kilometres.

A new police vehicle is expected to arrive soon.