Penticton’s top cop has put out another plea to the public to lock car doors and keep valuables out of plain sight.
While thefts from vehicles, the largest contributor by far to property crime, had gone up by about five per cent, Supt. Ted De Jager reported to council Tuesday afternoon that the overall property crime rate had dropped by 18 per cent year over year.
However, that number remained relatively flat compared to the final quarter of 2017, according to the police report. At the same time, thefts from vehicles rose 27 per cent from the final three months of last year and the first quarter of 2018.
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“Things in the entire region are going down significantly when we compare the first quarter to the last quarter of 2017, and we did have a spike in the last quarter of 2017,” De Jager said, noting the success of targeting a certain set of individuals tied to a large amount of property crime in the last quarter of the year.
When addressing the rise in thefts from vehicles, De Jager sounded somewhat exasperated, telling council he felt he was “very clear” in telling the public in the past that the majority of those thefts are coming from valuables in unlocked vehicles.
“I’m not sure what it’s going to take to get that message out to people. Again, over 75 per cent of these thefts from autos are from unlocked vehicles with valuables in plain sight,” he said, adding the RCMP is not stopping responding to thefts from auto.
“I said several months ago, and I’ll repeat it now, I think we’re coming to the point where we have to make some changes in that it’s not a battle that we’re winning. Every one of those files is an hour that a police officer could be out doing patrols in core areas or doing other types of proactive work, and I just need the public to come on board.”
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De Jager said he hopes things like coffee with a cop events will help to get that messaging out and curb some of those crimes.
“We do see displacement. So the targeting efforts in Penticton … is causing displacement into some of the other communities in the region.”
Indeed, both Oliver and Osoyoos reported increases in crime nearly across the board, with Oliver seeing the brunt of that.
The small town of about 5,000 saw 24 more incidents of violent crime — a 171 per cent increase. But Oliver’s increased crime isn’t just violent. Out of nine categories of crime, only thefts from vehicle saw a decrease, while non-business break-and-enters and vehicle theft both saw 100-plus per cent increases.
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In Osoyoos, the change was almost exclusively toward more crime, albeit with more tame changes compared with Oliver.
De Jager said that is to be expected, noting that same thing happens in places like the Lower Mainland, where one municipality’s police detachment performs a major crime sweep, followed by increases in crime in neighbouring communities.
“We are moving our targeted enforcement team and other teams into those areas to tackle them. But the big numbers that we’re looking at: certainly auto theft and any type of break-and-enter. Bringing those numbers down is a priority for the detachment, and will remain so,” De Jager said.
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Non-domestic violent crime in Penticton in the first quarter of 2018 has seen nearly a 20 per cent increase over the same period last year, according to De Jager’s report.
With 167 reported incidents of violent crime in the region, police note an 18 per cent rise over the first quarter of 2017. But that same number is a five per cent drop over the final three months of last year.
That compares with an even incidence in domestic violence, with 29 reported incidents in the first quarters of both last year and this year, which was a drop of 22 per cent over the final quarter of 2017.