Four Sask. players named to Canada world junior hockey championship team
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Berkly Catton, Brayden Yager, Caden Price and Tanner Howe were all named.
As the Regina Police Service enters 2022, a few unfortunate trends are concerning for Chief Evan Bray.
In 2021, police responded to more than 1,700 overdoses — a record number — with about 10 per cent of those being fatal. Police also responded to 15 murders in the Queen City last year, also a record high.
“It is my hope that we can find a way to work on some of these root causes of crime in our community in a way that has a significant impact that way in terms of crime against a person,” Bray said.
“Any sort of crime against a person — robberies, assaults, those types of things — it’s not about stats, it’s more about people. You’re seeing families torn apart and communities in serious despair because of tragic consequences that are happening in the community so finding a way that we can address those issues is difficult as well.”
Bray said in order to tackle the issue around addictions, it will take a concerted effort from many different agencies — including police and the provincial government — to make a positive impact.
One of the new tools the Regina Police Service will have in 2022 is a new air unit, approved during Regina city budget deliberations. Bray said the hope is to have that up and running in the latter part of the year.
“The air support unit is really going to be a positive step forward for our community,” he said. “I’m quite excited that our community is going to have the benefit of an air support unit. It will provide much more swift and immediate results on in-progress calls as they are happening.
“It will be an asset for us when we are looking for vulnerable people who may go missing in our community (and) More quick and swift identification of problems as they are unfolding — things like street racing, erratic drivers, impaired drivers.
“Our ability to respond to them will be greatly enhanced when we are not dispatching a police car hoping to catch the car still in the area. That plane can quickly see it from above and report it to the ground personnel who then can respond in a way that keeps them safe and keeps the community safe.”
Bray also noted the continued growth in the number of new police officers will help them better respond to the demands in the community. And he notes they are making a lot of internal efforts to improve their recruitment strategies.
“(We’re looking at) finding ways to continue to recruit people to work here, both as police officers and civilian police personnel, that is reflective of our community,” Bray said. “We’ve signed on for a ’30 by 30′ goal, which is 30 per cent female police officers by the year 2030 so we will be making some strides and doing some more work on that through the next year.
“Even within the organization, (we’re looking to do) better work on equity, diversity, and inclusion. That’s important work that I think speaks to the culture and health of an organization. Not only are we representative of our community, but when we hire people, are they coming to work feeling safe, valued (and) protected? That’s important work for us as well.”
Phase 1 of the Regina Police Service’s new headquarters building, which will see it begin to use the old Saskatchewan Transportation Company building across the street, will be complete by December.
“We expect that we will be moving into that building very early in 2023. Once we are able to move in there and into the bus depot, the areas of this current headquarter building will undergo some form of renovation to allow them to be populated with employees as well,” Bray added.
“We kind of have it broken down into a few phases but we are anticipating that phase being complete and that will signal a pretty significant move in terms of bringing all police personnel back together under one building as opposed to working in various different buildings throughout the city.”
As the police service has done the past few years, it will continue to keep COVID top of mind when responding to calls in the new year.
“We’re just planning (like) we are going to continue with COVID here. If the COVID situation improves, that’s a bonus, but we’ve learned we can deliver quality service delivery through a mask, with gloves on, through the benefit of vaccinations and through continued good communication,” he explained.
“I think like everybody, we’re hoping that the end is near with COVD but if it’s not, it doesn’t prevent us from delivering a good service for our community.”
Bray said in 2022, he hopes Regina citizens and the police service can continue to work well no matter what the future holds.
“A police service in any community is only as good as the citizens who believe in it,” he said. “The trust and the faith and the willingness to work together with our police service is something that really stands out in our city and is something we are all very proud of. That commitment to collaboration on community safety issues in 2022 is going to allow us to do great things.”