The BC Civil Liberties Association today released the results of their community consultations on the services offered by the RCMP as the province looks at whether or not to renew the service contract with the RCMP, and it is a report that doesn’t paint a positive picture of the force in the community.
“Participants in Prince Rupert did not have many positive comments about RCMP conduct in their community. In fact, despite the facilitator’s repeated attempts to solicit positive comments, only one participant identified her comment as a positive one,” reads the report, noting that another positive comment from participants was directed to the work done by Inspector Bob Killbery.
“Bob Killbery, head of detachment here, always had open ears when calling with client with problems with the RCMP, I’ll give him that. Mind you, the client couldn’t himself or herself get through to him, but he has open ears. Problems have been resolved that way,” said the participant
A lot of the comments contained in the reports are of single incidences involving the Prince Rupert RCMP, which range from traffic enforcement stories that include ticketing an 85-year old for not wearing a seatbelt even though he had recently had surgery and had a note allowing him not to drive with a seatbelt, to concerns about how the RCMP deal with
youth.
“My concern is that they’re not really doing as much as they should be doing when it comes to policing especially young children and the older teenagers,” said one participant.
“I want to hear more about what we can do to protect our children. We have people up in the Kootenay area, McKay Street who are petrified of gangs, they have young kids in those areas, they’re witnessing this.”
And while there were a number of negative comments, it was also acknowledged that not all of the blame can be placed on the
RCMP.
“Participants throughout the workshop repeatedly emphasized the lack of treatment options for people with alcohol and drug addictions in the community and the systemic problems to which this lack of treatment leads,” reads the
report.
“One participant expressed concern about a lack of empathy among officers that comes from repeated contacts with addicted populations.”