Watch above: Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill sits down with Lisa Dutton to discuss the gang issue and drug trade; the link between vehicle thefts, meth addition and keys; and the results of a police survey.
SASKATOON – Drug addiction is a big factor in the high rate of Saskatoon vehicle break-ins. Police Chief Clive Weighill also said people leaving keys in vehicles continues to be an issue.
“We’ve had a real problem with that over the last two or three years,” Weighill told Global News. “Methamphetamine is a real problem here, and Regina and Edmonton. There’s a lot of people addicted to meth and other drugs breaking into cars.”
“They’re trying to get any money, coins, anything they can sell out of it, and unfortunately a lot of the time they are coming across keys and fobs in the car, so they’re stealing the cars or the trucks.”
Weighill went on to say keys in vehicles is a problem in itself, because it makes them so much easier to steal.
“We know about 45 per cent of the vehicles stolen in Saskatoon have the keys or the fobs in them, and we suspect it’s actually more like 76 per cent,” he said.
“A lot of people that get their cars stolen, it could be a 2015 Lexus and they’re trying to tell us the keys weren’t in that car.
“There’s no way you can start that car without the keys.”
Weighill cautions people not to leave anything valuable in their car.
“Don’t leave it visible,” he said. “Don’t leave anything in the car that’s worth anything at all. They’ll look in your window, they’ll break your window, even to get a dollar out of the car.”
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Weighill also said a drug turf war that led to a lot of violence in March and April appears to be settling down.
In January a major bust, Project Forseti, put a large number of suspected drug dealers behind bars. Police believe that may have been a factor in other criminals trying to muscle into the market.
“We had 14 shootings, five homicides here in March and April,” said Weighill. “That’s really subsided, we’ve done a lot of work on the gangs, we’ve done some suppression, we hope with the new guns and gangs unit that will give us a way into getting people out of gangs and also the enforcement that has to be done.”
He added turf wars seem to flare up from time to time.
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“People jockey for positioning in the city, for the drug activity, and drugs are a big business, it’s very lucrative, lots of money there, so naturally people want to be in it, want to make a quick buck,” he said.
Weighill there has been a significant influx of criminals from Vancouver and Toronto, trying to cash in on Saskatoon’s healthy economy, and the drug activity that seems to go with it.
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