Police hope Hatters downtown feel safer with summer Foot Patrol Unit

By JEREMY APPEL on May 18, 2019.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

Hatters may notice an enhanced police presence downtown this summer.

That’s because the Medicine Hat Police Service is testing out a new Foot Patrol Unit as the result of a two-year-old survey on community safety, as well as the ongoing concerns of residents and business owners.

Insp. Brent Secondiak says the unit – which is drawn from the ranks of the Priority Street Crimes Unit – will be deployed in a couple of weeks.

“We feel there’s a general fear for safety in the downtown core, which is why we created this unit for the summer months,” said Secondiak.

He says matters have deteriorated since the survey results, with a new permanent supportive housing building and concerns with intravenous drug use.

“There’s just more services available downtown and I think that’s created a congregation of people – some of them we deal with, some of them we don’t – but generally I think the increase in calls has been the primary driver in that area,” Secondiak said.

The question of whether concentrating police resources downtown will lead to other areas of the city being under-served “is absolutely something we took into consideration,” he said.

However, Secondiak says Priority Street Crimes’ duties can be temporarily taken up by other officers.

“We did an analysis and we still feel that if we redeploy Priority Street Crimes to the Downtown Foot Patrol Unit for the summer months, and have our patrol members do all those checks for people who are out on interim release, offender accountability (and) high-risk offenders that we’ll manage for the summer months,” he said.

In September, the downtown officers will revert back to Priority Street Crimes, while the MHPS evaluates the downtown unit’s efficacy and determine what works moving forward.

“We’re going to speak to business owners before, which we’ve done some of, and after to see the effect, if it’s worth continuing in the summer months for years to come and just really see if it adds value,” Secondiak said.

“The big win would be an increase in the perception of safety.”

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