jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel
The Medicine Hat Police Service has seen a decrease in calls since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, chief Andy McGrogan says.
“It looks like the community is responding to the lack of activity and we’re seeing an awful lot less calls and need for service, so that’s good news,” said McGrogan. “A lot of people are self-isolating, which is creating that.”
He compared the atmosphere in the community to what it’s like during the Holiday Season.
“The streets are quieter, people are hunkered in their houses more, the bars aren’t open,” he said. “Who knew? It goes to show our community is out there doing what they can to keep us all safe too, limiting their access to services, and trying to stay healthy and safe themselves.”
Police are trying to strike a balance between officers self-isolating and being out in the community, he added.
“We’re looking at ramping up our work-from-home protocol in other units, just to make sure we have a contingency of officers who are healthy, in case things break out in the service we have the capacity to respond to emergent calls,” McGrogan said.
Some units are simply starting their day from home before going out on patrol, he said.
“We’re using teleconferencing a lot more and they just basically call in from their cars in some cases, but our uniformed folks, our first-response response folks are coming in and working their regular shifts,” McGrogan explained.
He says just four members, as of Friday morning, are in quarantine for showing coronavirus symptoms or as a precaution.
“We’re in pretty good shape with personnel as far as response goes right now,” he said.
The province’s police chiefs have had about four conference calls this week to discuss “community trends” and how to respond, McGrogan says.
Not every police service in the province has experienced a decrease in calls, he said.
McGrogan attributes this to the MHPS being “first out of the gate in terms of limiting the type of calls that we’re attending, triaging and using the call centre.”
“Our first responders and patrols are kind of bored, because they’re used to doing a lot of proactive activities that we’re trying to get them to limit right, so they’re basically looking for work out there,” he said.
The chief stresses that police can’t simply enforce social distancing.
“A lot of the isolation stuff is not legally bound. We’ve gotten some calls about people shopping. We’re asking the community to self-isolate, but they still need to go about their business and get their necessities, and do what they need to do,” said McGrogan.
