By Matthew Liebenberg
The summer season can be a time of relaxation and fun, but it can also result in higher alcohol consumption that leads to impaired driving charges.
The Swift Current RCMP saw an increase in the number of reported impaired drivers as well as the number of drivers who were charged for impairment in recent months.
Staff Sgt. Evan Gordon, the commanding officer of the Swift Current municipal RCMP detachment, provided these details during a presentation at a regular City council meeting, July 22.
He spoke about the quarterly community policing report for the period April to June 2024, which is the first quarter of the detachment’s fiscal year.
He felt the increase in impaired driving incidents was related to the summer season, when there are more outdoor activities, people are socializing a bit more and there were also large events in the city.
“Any time you have more people and outdoor events, beer gardens and things like that, you have an elevated risk of impaired driving,” he said.
The presence of the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol in the city during the week of Frontier Days played a role in the effectiveness of enforcement. Five of the 12 impaired driving infractions during the past quarter were caught by the Highway Patrol during this single week.
The Highway Patrol officers were also responsible for 11 drivers license suspensions due to cannabis use and three suspensions due to alcohol consumption.
“So a big shout out to Saskatchewan Highway Patrol,” Gordon said. “We appreciate them coming in and supplementing our numbers. It really does allow us to spend a lot of our focus on the events and anytime we have beer gardens and a large gathering of people, that’s where our focus is going to be to make sure that safety is paramount. This year I believe that was achieved, but having those extra patrols around the edges certainly helps us out as well.”
He indicated there has generally been a good response from motorists in the city to the mandatory alcohol screenings during routine and lawful traffic stops, which has been implemented by the Saskatchewan RCMP since April 1.
“I would say by and large members of the public that are being stopped and have been asked to provide a mandatory sample have been supportive of it,” he said. “There are a few that grumble and argue a little bit and there have been some that have taken it so far as to refuse providing a breath sample, which in and of itself is a Criminal Code offence that carries a similar penalty to impaired driving.”
The mandatory alcohol screening during a traffic stop involves the use of an approved screening device. He noted it only adds about 40 to 50 seconds to the traffic stop and he felt the experience might help to dispel some persistent misinformation about the use of such devices.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” he said. “You hear people complain about how impossible it is to provide a breath sample, that if you have asthma or one lung, you’re not able to do it. I think as people actually do provide these breath samples it’s opening up a lot of eyes to see just how reasonable and just how easy it is to do, but more importantly it’s catching those impaired drivers that are kind of on the line and that maybe wouldn’t have been detected otherwise.”
Gordon received feedback from the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol about the five drivers they charged with impaired driving during their week in Swift Current. The Highway Patrol sergeant felt that at least three of those drivers might not have been detected if the mandatory alcohol screening requirement was not in place.
There was an increase during the past quarter in the number of mischiefs related to so-called vehicle or car shopping. It refers to incidents where offenders will take whatever items they might find in unlocked vehicles, such as cash, sunglasses, pieces of clothing or backpacks.
The report indicated there were 106 mischief offences from April to June 2024 compared to 90 for the same period in 2023 and 97 in 2022.
There was also an increase in offences under the category for break and enter – other, which refers to any break and enter into garages, sheds and outbuildings. There were 27 such offences from April to June 2024 compared to nine for the same period in 2023 and two in 2022.
These incidents resulted in the theft of tools, batteries and various other items from garages and sheds.
“We did see a couple of cases where a little bit more time was taken in these outbuildings or garages and some substantial losses,” he said. “I believe one particular citizen had almost $10,000 worth of tools stolen from their garage over an evening.”
The majority of these mischiefs and break and enters were linked to two individuals, who have been arrested. One person remains in custody for car shopping activities and another was charged with break and enter and released on certain conditions.
“I think we have a fairly good record of catching people involved in these property crimes eventually,” he said. “Unfortunately, it may not be after the first instance or the second instance, but we do have a fairly good record in the city of holding those people to account.”
He added that video surveillance was integral to identifying these individuals and also linking them to multiple cases.
“We do quite often recover property,” he said. “However, the stolen property can be moved very quickly and quite often does get split up among different folks in town and outside of town. … So if we do locate some property, unfortunately it’s very rare that we locate absolutely everything. So there are people whose property has been broken into that we believe is related, but we may not be able to prove it.”
He reminded residents to keep their garages, sheds and vehicles locked to avoid the risk of losing valuable items.
“And another thing to remind folks of are leaving things like your debit card, bank card, Visa and cheques in vehicles or in unlocked spaces,” he said. “That was another hot ticket item that we saw through this stretch. That results in fraudulent cheques being written, fraudulent use of Visa and debit cards and quite often there’s insurance for those sorts of things in some cases, but in the meantime you’re out.”
