More concerns are being raised about policing in a North Okanagan community.
Residents recently gave Enderby city council an earful about crime in the community.
Now the victim of a break-and-enter says the police response time was unacceptable. The Mounties say they had pressing public safety priorities at the time.
Ric Mervyn came home around 6:30 p.m. on a Friday evening in mid-December to find his Enderby home had been broken into.
“My shop door was kicked in, my basement door was kicked in and the house and the shop had been ransacked,” Mervyn said.
“Lots of things (were) missing, some things (were) broken.”
Within 10 minutes the Enderby resident called police.
However, he ended up waiting hours for an officer to show up.
“I phoned a few times asking for an update on when I should expect officers and at 1 a.m. we got a call back telling us that they wouldn’t be there tonight,” Mervyn said.
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“I was very very angry. In fact, I was very rude to the officer on the phone by that point and I do regret that. Once the officer showed up they did a great job, but there was just nobody to show up.”
An officer did come to Mervyn’s home the next morning.
“I feel that the amount of coverage we have in the rural areas needs to be addressed,” he said.
“I feel that it is unacceptable that a person can phone 911 and nobody shows up.”
However, both the local RCMP and Enderby’s mayor said police are adequately staffed in the community.
They said calls are prioritized based on public safety.
“If there is something like this where there is a break-in (and) it has already happened, it will be prioritized as (to) the need in the community,” Enderby’s mayor Greg McCune said.
Indeed, that day, Dec. 14, police were dealing with a rash of break-ins in the Enderby area and lots of extra police supports were called in, including dog units and the emergency response team.
Unbeknownst to Mervyn, at same time he was calling police, RCMP were tracking the suspects.
“When we are responding to calls, we have to make the judgement on what is high risk: Is the public at risk if these people are out and about? At this time we determined that that was what was going on,” said Const. Kelly Brett, spokesperson for the North Okanagan RCMP.
“It was alleged that a firearm was involved in these incidences and therefore the RCMP had to act on that information and protect the public.”
Ultimately, two people were arrested that day in connection with the break and enter investigations.
Suspicious activity
Hours before Mervyn’s initial call, another Enderby resident said she called police when she saw two people, with the same type of vehicle that would later be spotted near Mervyn’s house, acting suspiciously.
“They were sitting here in their vehicle smoking drugs and just rummaging through everything,” recalled Deseree Charest.
It raises questions about whether arrests could have been made sooner.
“Later that night one of the officers had phoned me back and said they would have come by but they didn’t feel it was enough for them to bother with it, pretty much,” paraphrased Charest.
“If they would have just come and drove past, it would have prevented a lot of problems that happened that night.”
However, police said they had already identified suspects.
“I can’t speak to what was said to that particular complainant at that time but I do know the information was received and we did use that to connect the dots,” Brett said.
The RCMP spokesperson pointed out it is always a question of prioritizing calls.
“If it is a call that is coming in about a suspicious vehicle over somebody reporting a firearm… I know which one I would go to,” Brett said.
Mayor believes community is safe
Enderby’s mayor believes his community is safe and has good RCMP coverage.
“I’m just amazed at how well they do and their level of investigation. I know we are covered well,” said McCune.
McCune said there is work being done on increasing the communication with community members to let them know what action is being taken by police.
“People can give myself or any of our councillors a call at any time if they don’t think they are getting proper response time and we would be more than happy to try to get them some answers,” McCune said.
The mayor said due to its small population size the city has no control over the number of officers assigned to its area.
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