Crime downtown has slowed down since patrols increased, but grown in other areas: EPS chief

The chief of Edmonton Police Service, Dale McFee, sat down with reporters on Friday to talk about issues ranging from drugs, gangs, and bail reform.

EPS presented 2022's crime numbers last week showing an increase in crime, but McFee believes some recently implemented crime prevention strategies are making a difference.

Both the Human-Centred Engagement and Liaison Partnership Unit and the Police and Crisis Teams saw substantial increases in the number of referrals they made to social services last year.

"Over a 36 per cent reduction connecting them to services and not coming back into the system. That's huge."

Both teams are about to expand thanks to a $17-million contribution from the province earlier this month.

But now, the chief says there's a bottleneck for treatment space.

"We need a place to take people and I think, you know, the province is, credit to them, is actually building capacity right now."

McFee says a pilot program introduced in February to bring sheriffs into downtown Edmonton to work with officers has been "exceptionally good."

"We didn't have enough bodies, they've got good experience, they've got certain powers and authorities, powers of arrest, similar to what we have."

Police increased their presence in the downtown core after two men were killed in Chinatown on the same day last year.

McFee said the extra resources have started to bring crime numbers down.

"I want to be very clear too, although I said we've had some success, we're nowhere near where we need to be in the downtown, and or the surrounding areas."

McFee says criminals have started to shift to other areas where fewer police officers are present.

"When we actually shifted resources into Chinatown, into transit, into downtown… And we said over time that that crime will start to come down and it’ll shift elsewhere, guess what? It’s happened."

He says that migration is most notable along LRT or transit lines.

McFee also says drugs are a huge factor in crime in Edmonton and are the cause of many of the random attacks in the city.

"A lot of this random stuff and some of this radical behaviour, information on the street from our officers, a lot of this is meth driven, and I've probably said this so many times. We have a drug crisis in this community. We've had it for years. It’s certainly gotten worse with COVID."

McFee says people using drugs and committing violence need to be held accountable, but so do the gangs selling the drugs.

"The gangs that are actually perpetuating this and taking advantage of them, that's another level of accountability."

McFee says about a third of the homicides in Edmonton this year have been gang related, and homicides with firearms are up from previous years.

"Five or six of them are definitely gang related. The interesting part about some of the homicides that we’re seeing is this trend with guns. Last year, guns weren't nearly as prominent. This year, I think 10 of the 15 are firearms related."

When it comes to gang members and other criminals who repeatedly offend, McFee wants to see harsher penalties.

He was one of the police chiefs who met virtually with Canadian premiers last week to call for bail reforms.

He says while the intent of federal Bill C-75, which was implemented in 2019 and changed the bail process in Canada, was good, it allows repeat offenders to escape consequences.

"A lot of the accountability in relation to those people, regardless of race, that commit violence in our communities, and the lack of accountability in relation to them has went to another level."

"How we treat the vulnerable and how we treat the violent can not be the same. It doesn’t mean you don’t use the same rehabilitation practices, but one might be controlled in setting, such as a rehabilitation facility, a correctional centre, and the other is in the community."

McFee said the chiefs and premiers were in agreement in calling on the federal government to implement bail reforms.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson