Adding police officers to downtown Galt didn't decrease calls, police say

A pilot program that saw increased police presence in Galt this summer did not decrease the number of calls for service — that was revealed in a report before the police services board this week.

The pilot program called Project Visible, increased "police visibility" to address concerns from the community about safety in the area.

More officers were added to the area for eight weeks from June 6 to July 31, 2018.

Calls for service did not decrease, however.

Police data shows calls for unwanted persons increased compared to the same period last year, from 440 to 485. 

The number of calls for disturbances went down slightly from 166 to 156. For intoxicated persons, calls increased from 44 to 55.

The report says that increase in calls could have been generated by officers themselves because more were in the area, but the report says they aren't sure if that's what caused the increase in calls.

"To say that with certainty would be much more time consuming," the report reads.  

Chief Bryan Larkin said the project won't continue next year but that he considers it a success.

"I think one of the challenges we're addressing is perception," he said at the meeting. "Some things get blown out of portion ... there's a myth that police don't do anything, and it's furthest from the truth."

Majority said no issues with marginalized people

Deputy chief Kevin Thaler, who did a presentation on the project says the goal of it was to do outreach to local businesses and people living in the area.

"Their feedback was, 'We appreciate you being here,' but the overwhelming majority say they don't have an issue with the marginalized persons downtown," said Thaler. "I think my expectation was that we would see higher numbers than this."

Thaler said a change in leadership at the Bridges shelter has brought more enforcement of rules.

"People don't like rules, so they left the Bridges and they were then found on kindred properties and switched to tents and chose to live that way," he said. 

'We're in care-taking mode'

Thaler said the officers who worked on the project "got to recognize that many of these issues aren't police issues ... They're upstream issues, social development situations, a lot of it is about capacity." 

Two members of the police services board said they were glad that the project happened.

Larkin said the WRPS will be working on a new crime prevention plan for 2019. 

"I think one of the challenges we're facing is public policy, with the provincial moratorium on consumption sites and some of those discussions, we're in a care-taking mode," Larkin said.  

"We have to continue to apply resources and do that."