Medicine Hat Police Service Const. Dwayne Wist rides through the Stampede on his bike. The MHPS had officers on patrol at all times, and Sgt. Mike Fischer says crime was in line with previous years. -- NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
Medicine Hat News
The Medicine Hat Police Service was not too busy during Stampede week — which is exactly what it was hoping for.
“When you put so many people in one place, then add alcohol into the mix, there’s definitely potential for things to go south,” said Sgt. Mike Fischer. “What we saw was, for the most part, people just coming out and having a good time, not looking to cause trouble.”
The biggest issue over the weekend for police was missing children. The MHPS dealt with 35 missing children and one missing person during the Stampede.
“When a kid as young as two years old goes missing, it’s a tough situation and you don’t really have much to work with,” said Fischer. “We had our bracelet program set up at both entrances, which makes reuniting a child with their parent way easier because it gives them a matching bracelet with a phone number on it. The problem is people are still not using this program. When we find a child that might not even be able to speak, all we have to work with is to look for frantic parents — we really push this program because it works.”
Another issue the police were dealing with was not brought by carnival goers, but actually from the workers.
“Two carnival workers were involved in a physical dispute,” he said. “Alcohol was involved, and as we talked to more and more people, we decided to not press charges.”
Over the four days, police had to evict a small number of teenagers for misbehaving, but Fischer says he thinks Medicine Hat teens are starting to get the message.
“We’ve been in schools a lot, and these kids know us. They know our faces and know who we are,” he said. “We tell them, ‘you only get one shot before you get thrown out,’ and I think the ones looking for trouble have started avoiding things like the Stampede. The kids here were well behaved for the most part, it’s good to see.”
Now with the event over, Fischer says behaviour is about in line with previous years, and that he sees positives.
“Medicine Hat is a pretty well-behaved city,” he said. “I think this was a really positive Stampede event. People came out and had a good time. Even the Beer Gardens didn’t give us too much trouble.”
