RCMP remind residents to lock doors to cut down on property crimes

Property crimes rates are staying steady according to the most recent Chestermere RCMP Quarterly report.
Chestermere RCMP Operations NCO Sgt. Garry Tavernier is asking for the public’s help to tackle this problem.
He is asking that people makes sure to lock their homes and cars and to ensure that no valuables are left visible.
“Keep your doors locked, don’t put valuables where people can see it,” he said.
There were 83 recorded property crimes in the quarter spanning April 1 to June 30, 2017. The vast majority of these were thefts from vehicles.
This is down by one from this period in 2016.
In many cases, Tavernier said that these kinds of property crimes are crimes of opportunity.
The best way to prevent property crimes is for residents to lock their doors and make sure that valuables are not visible.
“It’s very important…not to have valuables easily seen within the vehicles,” he said, “for criminals that’s an opportunity.”
It’s not just sunglasses and loose change that need to be secured, its common for criminals to use garage door openers take from cars to access people garages and potentially house as well.
“It’s very important to lock your vehicles at all times,” said Tavernier.
Frequently, as long as there are no valuables visible, people attempting these crimes will move on if they try the doors and they are locked.
“They’ll try the handle and if its locked they’ll move on,” said Tavernier.
“They know a lot of times if the vehicle’s locked there might be an alarm system if they break the windows so that will scare them away,” he said.
Property crimes aside, Tavernier is happy with the state of policing in the community.
“Chestermere is a very safe community,” said Tavernier.
The detachment has succeeded in the past quarter to improve safety on Chestermere’s roads.
Their goal was to reduce reportable traffic collisions by 5 per cent. Police not only meet but greatly exceeded that goal with a 33 per cent reduction over last year.
“It’s good,” said Tavernier.
The RCMP continue to work towards maintaining a positive and visible presence in the community.
In the past quarter, they made several visits to schools as well as attended community events such as Water Fest and Canada Day and are continuing the positive ticketing program with Synergy.
“It’s always a positive when we have the opportunity…to meet with the public,” said Tavernier.
The attendance by police at community events is based on their availability and the number of emergency calls they have.
“We try to make every event,” he said, “our members enjoy it, they have a good time doing it.”
Police have also been making boat patrols more frequently this summer.
RCMP are checking for safety and compliance with all boating laws and regulations.
The most well-known checks are for life jackets and making sure no one is consuming alchohol while boating.
Depending on the class of boat though police will be checking for other required safety equipment.
“Personal water craft for example, they have to make sure they have one life jacket for each person on board, they have to have a line that is at least 15 metres long, things like that,” he said.