A group is hoping more people will volunteer to help look out for any unusual or suspicious activity in Yorkton, Sask.
Chairperson Cliff Trombley said he’s relatively new but the Citizens of Patrol Program (COPP) has been in the city for over two decades.
“It’s just that extra set of eyes and ears out on the streets each evening or whenever we can get out to volunteer to help with the reduction of crime,” Trombley said on Monday.
“We try to do is just try to make our community safer and rid the city of as much crime as possible … (RCMP) can’t be everywhere and they can’t be patrolling all the streets.
“We meet with the RCMP and just talk about some things that they would like us to do and then some things if there’s things that we would see that might be of value, we’ll run it by them to see if it’s OK with them.”
Trombley said volunteerism has dwindled over the years and they now have 10. He hopes more people will step up so they schedule more people to patrol the city of roughly 20,000 people.
“Right now, it’s very ad hoc where we’ve only got a handful of members. So the amount of time that they’re patrolling is very sporadic. So it would be nice to have a more organized approach,” Trombley said.
“If we could get another 20 to 25 volunteers over and above what we’ve got, I think that would really help.”
COPP has two vehicles that volunteers us to patrol the streets for any suspicious activity in Yorkton.
“The overall goal is that we find none so that means that we’re, I guess, fulfilling our duties. We don’t want to find any (suspicious) activity,” Trombley said.
“We do not engage in any activity or try to intervene or stop anything. That’s not our responsibility … if we see something, we immediately call the RCMP and then they come and investigate.”
Trombley, who is retired, said he was on the Citizens on Patrol in Wynyard back in the late 90s.
Yorkton is approximately 180 km northeast of Regina.
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