Campbell River RCMP have busiest year in a decade

The Campbell River RCMP says 2021 was its busiest year since modern reporting systems were created a decade ago. 

In a news release, the force reported that the year closed with 17,588 calls for service. That was a 4.8% increase over 2020 which had seen a 1.6% increase over 2019. 

According to the release, The top four file types that officers responded to were:

1. Check Well Being (A common catch all for files, initial requests for Check Well Being often lead to Mental Health Apprehensions, Sudden Death Investigations, Assault Investigations, etc. People often call in and request check well beings on individuals who are exhibiting behaviours outside of societal norms which have been caused by drugs or alcohol.)
2. Traffic Complaints (Calls specifically generated regarding traffic incidents, these do not include general traffic stops and tickets)
3. Disturbances (Typically responses to fights in progress or unknown causes of screaming and yelling in the community. Often lead to full scale assault or assault with weapon investigations or Domestic Violence investigations)
4. Unwanted Persons (Typically files generated for people who have refused to leave a location when asked to by the legal property representative. Often times such files result in location of individuals with outstanding warrants or Breach of Condition Investigations)

Following closely behind the top four call types were property and theft files.

“A large reason that we focus on news reporting and crime tips for property/theft and traffic rules,” said Cst Maury Tyre, “is that they are file types that occupy a great deal of investigative time in the Campbell River RCMP Detachment. Many of the events are easily preventable if people are knowledgeable of how to drive properly and how to protect themselves from crimes such as theft from autos.” 

As of January 21st, 2022, file counts have held steady with the file counts of 2021. 

RCMP say it’s their hope that as Covid concerns will start to decrease, masks will come off again enabling the easier identification of criminals in the community.

They say criminals have become emboldened by the belief that they cannot be identified, leading to “more and more arrests being made of those who seek to steal from commercial locations.”