Denare Beach residents are clear about their concerns – they feel uneasy about crime in the community.
Village council and Creighton RCMP held a community meeting on July 26 to hear concerns from members of the public. Village councillor Jean Champagne moderated the event, which included Sgt. Sean McPhee and Cst. Carmen Taylor from Creighton RCMP.
“It seems like there is a need, a definite need, for us to talk about this issue and what we can do,” said Champagne.
When asked, McPhee said there are a small number of offenders – usually around six – committing a disproportionately large amount of crime. He added the group includes teenagers and young adults and the six people are subject to frequent remand checks by police.
“What we do is get the offenders we know, not just youth, some adults, we get them on conditions and we monitor them on conditions. We check them every single night,” he said. Unless something goes off the rails and they can’t get to their house at night, we go every night. It’s targeted enforcement. We know exactly who our problems are, we know who the upcoming people are, we know who the outgoing people are – it’s not a secret.”
While some in attendance voiced concerns with a perceived increase in property crime, McPhee said detachment statistics show a decrease in property crime and break-and-enters. McPhee also said that during a six-month span from November 2017 to April 2018, there were no break-and-enters reported for Denare Beach.
“That has been unheard of, in the history of Denare Beach. Looking back through the stats, through the periods of past years, it doesn’t slow down. It’s a constant. By managing the six people that do all the damage and monitoring them, it stops,” he said.
When asked about a curfew for young people – a practice that is currently instituted in Flin Flon and is on the books in Denare Beach – McPhee said the practice is not part of the detachment’s priorities.
“Curfew bylaws punish good kids,” he said. When asked if police couldn’t use a curfew as a reason to pull kids aside at night and ask if they have seen anything, McPhee added, “We can say that anyway.”
“We know who the problems are. What happens with a curfew, is that it becomes a game for kids to run from cops. It becomes a game, then we spend our whole night chasing this kid, for what, because they’re walking home from a friend’s house?”
McPhee added that Creighton officers do have strict curfews for repeat offenders, but not for the majority of youths.
“Pick the hill you want to die on. If you start doing that, you just make enemies. We’re in the business of information – we don’t want to make enemies of people. I do not support a blanket curfew. We put curfews on people who need curfews and we check them nightly. They’re the problems.”
Drugs and unsecured weapons were also topics of discussion at the meeting.
One resident asked about drug use, noting that some paraphernalia, such as needles, have been found in public places.
“We’ve had syringes found in driveways and stuff like that,” said Duane Bray, a Denare Beach resident.
“When you know there’s something coming into the community, can you do any sort of policing to stop it?
McPhee told the crowd that the drugs of choice in Denare Beach have been prescription drugs and opioids, naming one drug in particular – hydromorphone, abbreviated to hydromorph.
“People are going to doctors and saying ‘I have a sore hand, I have a sore leg,’ and doctors are giving them hydromorph. That’s a big, big prescription drug to get – that’s a heavy-duty drug. It’s a hard painkiller,” he said.
McPhee added that enforcing use of prescription drugs can be difficult due to the questionable legality of some uses of the drug.
“If you’ve got a prescription bottle that has your name on it, it’s legal. If you start selling it, it’s illegal. If you start crushing it up and snorting it, it becomes illegal. That’s a very hard one for us to fight.”
McPhee also said the community has not been open about drug abuse and where drugs have come from.
“I have policed in 24 different communities now, and I’ve never seen a more tight-lipped and more protective community about their drug supply. That’s the God’s honest truth. I would love nothing more than to have a warrant and knock a door down – I’m not going to say we aren’t working on it, but it is a challenge in this community,” he said.
“Some people in Denare Beach really seem to like their drugs. It’s not just people doing the crimes – it’s lots of people here. I’ve honestly never seen a community more tight-lipped about what’s going on.”
Sinclair James, a Flin Flon resident who attended the meeting, asked how the drugs were getting to Denare Beach.
“I just had knee surgery and I can’t get any painkillers at all – I don’t know how these people are getting hydromorph,” he said.
McPhee said the detachment had found three prominent drug prescribers who they suspect had been overprescribing patients, adding all three were no longer in the community and that there is a program RCMP can use to report suspected overprescribing doctors.
McPhee also mentioned there were issues with stolen property in Denare Beach, including guns.
“There’s a lot of stolen guns in Denare Beach, a lot of stolen guns. They are not locked up. They’re behind doors, they’re under beds, they’re in every place where your dad hid it when you were a kid,” he said.
McPhee mentioned that, in some instances, a victim of a gun theft can be charged with improper storage of a firearm, especially when a gun is taken from an open location.
“Isn’t that just blaming the victim [of a gun theft] for being the victim?” asked Adam Ricard, a Denare Beach resident.
“There’s a reason why that law is there,” said McPhee, adding the detachment does not often issue such a charge.
“We don’t punish victims just to punish victims,” he said.
When asked, McPhee said the detachment has a hard time finding stolen property because items taken from Denare Beach locations are taken out of the community quickly and fenced.
“We have a pretty good idea of where it gets fenced off, but a lot of stolen property is gone fast,” he said.
There is significant interest for a Citizens on Patrol Program (COPP) in Denare Beach.
James, who leads the Flin Flon COPP, pitched locals on the idea of having a COPP in Denare Beach.
The idea was fully supported by Champagne and McPhee, who made clear that such a program would be endorsed by both the RCMP and village council.
“I am more than happy to assist, help, guide, whatever it takes, but it has to be community-run. If it’s police-run, it will fail. If it’s run by the community, it can work,” said McPhee.
“If someone wants to grab it and run with it, I will offer every support I can.”
Champagne estimated that, in order to have the same per-capita strength as Flin Flon’s COPP program, a Denare Beach program would need more than six members. Multiple people signed up at the end of the meeting.
Champagne said the village already has a neighbourhood watch plan and a neighbourhood watch Facebook group, but that a COPP group would be more formal and a useful addition.
“We have a neighbourhood watch plan. We have the village divided up into areas,” said Champagne. He added that people would be designated to be program leads in each area.
