By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle
Total property crime in Oliver is up a significant 27 per cent from 2020, primarily due to a scourge of break and enters that the town has been dealing with for months. Oliver’s crime rates were a standout compared to the rest of the region during the local RCMP’s yearly updates for the Regional District of the Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) at their Feb. 16 meeting.
The talk of the meeting was certainly Oliver’s crime rates which have spiked and are bringing the whole region’s numbers up. The total property crime in Oliver is up 27 per cent from 2020. The primary reason for this is the fact that break and enters into businesses skyrocketed in the municipality during the reporting period.
With the break and entry numbers up 170 per cent from 2020, Sgt. Don Wrigglesworth of the Oliver detachment addressed the board: “I am just going to jump right to it, we are just destroyed by break and enters.”
He continued, “we have one individual in jail, who we believe is responsible for 40 of the 45 break and enters that happened in those three months.” This individual is Lloyd John Baptiste, known locally in the community as “LJ”.
The other two topics mentioned in the segment were the ongoing problem of catalytic converter thefts which resulted in the numbers for thefts from vehicles being up 54 per cent from 2020. Sgt. Wrigglesworth said that he counted 18 from June to December.
Penticton RCMP Staff Sgt. Bob Vatamaniuck commented on the thefts that they seem to have an idea that it is “two or three individuals” responsible that are coming from out of the area. They are working with the province and local salvage yards to deal with this problem.
The other topic was the jail’s impact on these numbers. Sgt. Wrigglesworth noted that something that will be done going forward is to separate the Oliver numbers from the RDOS and the municipalities to see what the comparisons are. For example, he noted that assaults were up, but mentioned this was primarily because of incidents at the jail.
The province has recently recognized the time and energy it takes with the jail being in Oliver RCMP jurisdiction, and has committed to bolstering their numbers.
When it comes to Osoyoos, the results were in the opposite direction with total property crime being down 21 per cent in both town and rural Osoyoos. It was noted that the numbers for Rural Osoyoos do not exactly correspond to the RDOS boundaries, and therefore these numbers are for the detachment area and not the RDOS boundaries.
Sgt. Jason Bayda made clear that although the numbers are down quite significantly, the observed fluctuations are often due to “prolific offenders” who are two or three people in the community causing the most grief.
He continued that “we have had some successes lately. We had an individual move up from the lower mainland that caused us a bit of grief when it comes to thefts in the area, involving stolen vehicles, thefts from vehicles as well as shoplifting.
Through Cpl. Dave Smith’s work, they learned that this person was buying vehicles, opening bank accounts, and purchasing multiple cell-phone plans under a totally different name, and using false identification, of a victim, an innocent person from Vancouver Island. This person had been the subject of fraud and identity theft for years.
“We expect this person to either be in jail very soon or out of our community.”
There is currently a warrant out for a different individual’s arrest who has been quite a nuisance when it comes to vehicle thefts.
Bayda also informed the board that Cpl. Dave Smith will be leaving the Osoyoos detachment in order to fill “an important role” focusing on a mental health role with the force in Penticton.
