Saskatoon police committing three officers to curb crime in Pleasant Hill
The Saskatoon Police Service is dedicating three officers to a specialized unit to help curb crime in the Pleasant Hill neighbourhood.
Last fall, members of the Pleasant Hill Community Association asked the Board of Police Commissioners for more preventive policing resources.
A member of the Pleasant Hill Community Association told CTV News that police would need to take a different approach to build trust in the community.
"Every year, we tell the city that we need to invest in prevention in our community, (and) invest in relationships — the residents are tired of sounding like a broken record,” community association member Shane Partridge said at the time.
"We need a police presence in our community not like the other communities."
According to a report from police to the board of police commissioners on Thursday, help is now on its way.
On May 1, the service plans to move three officers from patrol to the community mobilization unit, where they’ll focus on the Pleasant Hill community.
Police Supt. Darren Pringle said there are three main components to the plan.
He said officers will consult with community members to identify key issues, while crime analysts will follow trends and find patterns in criminal activity to help police be in “the right place at the right time.”
“There is more of a sporadic nature to the crime in Pleasant Hill, which is challenging to have uniform folks in place to interdict,” he said.
“I think that’s why with this new layered approach that we’re going to be trying … it gives us a few more options, because we are potentially in the right place at the right time more often.”
Pringle said police will also use data to do “service mapping” to find where first responders are consistently being called to.
“Every police service knows crime is under reported, so is there a way to determine if crime is happening perhaps in a different way, perhaps by service response,” he said.
He said if police aren’t getting called for crimes, but ambulance or fire continue to respond to the same area, then service mapping may give police insight on “reported activity in the community.”
Pringle says the framework of this plan can be applied to other communities, if needed.
-With files from Keenan Sorokan
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
NEW Kim Kardashian brand kids' sleepwear and more: Here are some recalls to watch out for
Here are the latest recalls Canadians should watch out for, according to Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Is your password 123456? Here's why you should make it stronger
With the sheer number of passwords needed today, it may come as no surprise that over 60 per cent of Canadians feel overwhelmed, and over a third reportedly forget their passwords monthly.
Britney Spears and Sam Asghari are officially divorced and single
Britney Spears and Sam Asghari are officially divorced and single.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.