POLICE BEAT: All was quiet over the Christmas season
By Erin Perkins
The police in the Boundary region got a break this Christmas season and had 18 fewer files, over the year, than in 2011, said Grand Forks RCMP staff sergeant Jim Harrison.
“The whole (Christmas) season was really, really good,” said Harrison. “I’m happy to say it was a peaceful Christmas and New Year.”
While they did have some Counter Attack road checks over the holiday, there were few incidents of note, although the results are still coming in.
“Even the accident numbers are way down,” said Harrison.
The file count for 2012 was down by 18 from 2011 – from 4,404 to 4,386. That doesn’t mean the eight constables, one corporal and one staff sergeant in Grand Forks and the three constables and one corporal in Midway weren’t busy. There may have been fewer files, but there were some big incidents in the Boundary, which takes up a lot of police resources both locally and from elsewhere like the Kootenay Boundary Regional detachment, said Harrison.
“The large files use up a lot of resources for a short period of time,” said Harrison, adding that having other RCMP resources at their disposal helps smaller detachments like ours fill in the gaps when needed.
Some notably large cases included the Pines Bible Camp tragedy, the Grand Forks Hotel fire and, most recently, the forced confinement and robbery in Greenwood. The Midway detachment and police cruiser was also hit by a bottle rocket, a Christina Lake couple went over the falls and drowned and the Grand Forks Credit Union bomb scare in which Harrison personally pulled the suspicious brief case opened from across the parking lot.
