Crime at Denare Beach is starting to slow down and that’s just the way the Creighton RCMP detachment likes it.
The community, which the detachment separates into municipal and reserve sections for its reporting, has seen criminal activity in the municipal section shrink dramatically in recent years, especially property crime. Members of Creighton RCMP held a public meeting at the DenarePlex on March 28 to discuss crime matters. The detachment holds meetings at least once a year in both municipal and reserve areas of the community. There was a noticeable reduction in crowd numbers this year, going from a nearly full seating area last summer to only about a dozen citizens last week.
“Less happened this year,” said Sgt. Sean McPhee with Creighton RCMP.
After a rash of break-ins in 2016, numbers have dropped. Since 2016, when 37 break-ins were reported in the village, the number of reported break-ins decreased to only seven last year and only two cases so far in 2019: a garage break-in and another call RCMP are still investigating.
No assault cases have been reported in the Denare Beach municipal area so far this year, down from 16 last year and four from Jan. 1 to April 1.
Finding and dealing with individual offenders has been important in shrinking the concerns.
“What we’ve done is we’ve identified our top offenders. It’s not a secret who they are. We’ve targeted them, charged them, put them on curfews, on heavy conditions and we check them every single day. If they breach, they go on remand,” said McPhee.
“As it stands right now, out of our top 10 offenders - there’s between eight and 10 - only one is not in jail. When they’re in jail, they’re not here hurting the community, which leaves us with seven break-and-enters for a whole year.”
Members of the public asked questions to the police, including their thoughts on an increase in home security cameras in the area.
“People up here have put up a lot of cameras now. Those cameras are dynamite for us. They are catching a lot of our stuff, a lot of our charges that wouldn’t be found otherwise. They’re on camera and our people are very dialed in to who our people are now. They can identify them by their shoes. They’re quite well-versed in who our targets are and there’s not much getting through our hands,” McPhee said, adding home video surveillance helped police find the perpetrators behind a vandalism incident at the same building the meeting was held in earlier this year.
“It’s been the house cameras that have been best for us. We had some damage done to the DenarePlex a couple months ago and cameras were our best weapon. They see what people don’t when they’re sleeping.”
McPhee also addressed other crimes in the community, such as auto theft. One vehicle was reported stolen earlier this year, with arrests coming later in relation to the theft. McPhee gave assurances that habitual offenders were either incarcerated or no longer living in the area, but advised residents to lock car doors and avoid storing keys inside vehicles as a precaution.
“It’s small-town living, but we don’t have small-town mentalities anymore,” he said.
