Police arrest five teens in connection to vehicle break-ins
By JEREMY APPEL on August 30, 2019.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com
Police have arrested five teens after a string of vehicle break-ins in the city’s northeast and northwest were reported to them over the past month.
The Medicine Hat Police Service patrol section devised a plan to investigate these incidents, which, along with increased public reporting of suspicious activity and crime data analytics, led them from one suspect to another.
“We looked for dates and times where offences would occur, or were likely to occur again. Based on that, we were able to go into the area, conduct surveillance, talk to sources and gather more intel,” said Insp. Brent Secondiak.
“Based on everything that we had done up to this point, we were able to formulate grounds to arrest, which we did. Based on that arrest, we gained more evidence and were able to locate all five persons.”
The suspects, who range from 14 to 17 years old, cannot be identified under the provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Police are using a “multi-faceted approach” in conjunction with the Crown’s office, provincial court, Child and Family Services, as well as other relevant parties, to address the teenagers’ criminal behaviour.
Measures could include displacement, curfews, no-contact orders, addressing mental health concerns as necessary and education on the impact of their behaviour.
“Nothing overrules the courts, but we realize the courts can’t deal with a lot of the root causes of some of these behaviours,” said Secondiak.
“A lot of them are from broken homes and families, and have some discipline issues, so if we can get more services involved, our goal is to stop the behaviour in the future. The courts do their best, but the process is very slow.”
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