By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
Local RCMP will begin wearing body cameras beginning in late February or early March 2025 as the national roll-out continues, according to Osoyoos RCMP commander, Sgt. Jason Bayda.
Bayda was responding to a question by Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff during his Dec. 10 third quarter crime stats briefing on whether officers here would be part of the program. “Every officer will have a body camera,” he confirmed.
Meanwhile, Bayda reminded council not to be alarmed by the percentage increases, like intimate partner violence for instance, which recorded a year-on-year increase of 100 per cent for the third quarter which was an increase from one to two incidents.
“We’re a small town, we’re talking about small, either increases or decreases,” he said in reference to the small base number of many of the categories.
The one exception to this is auto theft which has increased 214 per cent – now standing at 22 incidents year-to-date compared with seven in the same period last year. The problem is not confined to Osoyoos or Oliver he noted, saying it stretches from Pemberton to the Kootenays and throughout the entire Okanagan Valley.
Third quarter crime statistics for Osoyoos.
Bayda referenced the recent arrest by Oliver RCMP of two individuals – a 26 year old female and 39 year old male – after the two fled from Oliver in a stolen truck and were eventually apprehended in Okanagan Falls.
The woman faces numerous charges including possession of stolen property, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, flight from police and assault of a police officer while the male has outstanding warrants for break and enter and mischief.
“We’ve arrested them a few times now on stolen vehicle charges, and they’re currently in custody waiting their next appearance,” Bayda said. “We know that they are active from Pemberton all the way to Nelson,” he added, noting that the vehicle involved in the recent incident was from Pemberton.
“We also know that they’ve had vehicles from here in Nelson, or vehicles from Nelson into our area. So they’ve operating at a very big range, and they’re people that we consider dangerous to us.”
He highlighted that in the recent incident, the female driver attempted to run over a police officer that was on the side of the road, a video of which was posted to a local social media page. “Luckily the police officers did get out of the way.”
“We’re proactively doing everything we can, when they get out we are on them, and we’ll do everything we can to keep them in jail and hopefully decrease the thefts of vehicles,” Bayda said.
In the case of these two individuals, Bayda said their vehicle of choice are large pickup trucks, in particular F350s which are easy to steal because they aren’t equipped with an immobilizer. These vehicles are then used to commit further crime, like break and enter at businesses.
“We have them on video actually, in a stolen vehicle . . . committing break and enter at businesses.
“So A. it’s a big vehicle that you have the box in the back that you can load up stolen goods in, and B. it’s a vehicle that can easily ram a police vehicle, and that’s why we say these people are dangerous to us. They will not stop for us, and so we have to use other methods to try and apprehend them safely,” Bayda said.
Top 12 categories RCMP officers are called out for in Osoyoos.
Another area that showed a trending increase is Mischief to Property which rose 39 per cent in the quarter from 18 to 25 incidents year-on-year and up 30 per cent in the first three quarters to 56 incidents over last year’s same period number of 43.
“There’s a significant number of mischiefs,” which Bayda says are a whole mix of things.
“A lot of it was children actually,” he said giving the example of a six-year-old who was spotted by a neighbour lighting a fire. He noted that the parents took action immediately, but as the police were called it gets added to the statistics.
“We had some youth smashing some bottles down at Cottonwood Park, and we had incidents where people were using hot tubs of facilities that they weren’t registered at so those are things we get called to remove them,” he said to guffaws from councillors.
Bayda also highlighted the case of one individual who contributed to a number of the files. In this case, it was an adult male that was living with his parents and as a result of an alcohol addiction, he caused a number of issues at his parent’s house which required visits by the RCMP.
“The last time he spent the night in jail with us and seems to have gotten the picture, we haven’t had any calls since then, so that’s a bonus,” he said.
Fraud is also up 34 per cent in the first three quarters with 47 incidents reported compared with 35 in the same period last year.
Noting that seniors are particularly vulnerable Bayda said that the RCMP Community Policing Unit was here in June to do a presentation at Sunshine Ridge and again in September at the Sonora Centre to help educate people on the various scams being perpetrated.
Osoyoos RCMP might also be gaining two new members who already live in the community but have been working in different sections of the force. This includes Constable Dave Fahlman who is currently in the BC Highway Patrol’s traffic section and will be transferring to the local detachment effective Dec. 27.
Bayda says it will be a “very quick move because he lives in town, so we’ll get him pretty soon up and running. He’s actually been working a lot for us over the summer, he’s been working a lot of overtime shifts for us, so he’s very familiar with the community and just extremely excited to come here.”
A second RCMP member who lives in Osoyoos may be joining but Bayda said he could not name the person as it has not been officially confirmed as yet, something he hopes will happen “in the next few months”.
