LPS public conversation focuses on downtown beat
By Lethbridge Herald on March 22, 2023.
A couple walks their dogs downtown Wednesday afternoon. Lethbridge police staged their first community conversation this week, focusing on the downtown patrol area.
Herald photo by Al BeeberAlejandra Pulido-Guzman – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com
The Lethbridge Police Service hosted the first of four community conversations Tuesday night in a discussion focusing on the downtown patrol area.
LPS chief Shahin Mehdizadeh said that overall he was very pleased with the conversation, with more than 50 people in attendence.
“It was great, that is what we wanted for the public to show up so they can hear from us and we want to hear from them. We are looking forward to the other three community conversations,” said Mehdizadeh.
He said the downtown community conversation is a little bit more unique than the other three since there are people downtown for various reasons.
“We have many different individuals who actually have a keen interest in our downtown core. There are those who actually live here, there are those who have businesses in downtown, and there are those who actually may live in other parts of the city but they use downtown businesses, restaurants, etc. So we’re quite happy to hear from different people,” said Mehdizadeh.
He said a lot of the conversation revolved around social issues, drug use, homelessness and encampments.
“We try to at least educate people on what police is doing and really what our capacity is to deal with some of these things, and also the partnerships that are critical in addressing some of the social issues because really it is not just the police who has to deal with it. There are more skilled organizations and agencies who have a very key role to play. But these are all good conversations, and we look forward to the future ones,” said Mehdizadeh.
He said during the session he had a presentation in which he talked about crime rates and trends downtown.
“We’re seeing downward crime trends which is great, both in the city and also in the downtown core, but some crime types have increased as I spoke to the city and the most significant increases we saw in a crime type, were crimes against persons,” said Mehdizadeh.
He said the majority of them are assaults, but the key for the public to remember is that those are not just random people assaulting random individuals – they are usually people known to each other with the majority being part of the vulnerable population.
“It’s not that these things should be alarming to our average good citizens, but that is what the stats say and we want to be very transparent and to at least let them know what are some of the trends that we’ve seen in downtown and in the future in different zones in the city,” said Mehdizadeh.
“We didn’t do a survey but we had a mix of everyone because as people got up to speak, basically we had business owners and we had people who live downtown and also those who don’t live downtown but they do come downtown and they obviously have their perception of what our downtown is all about,” said Mehdizadeh.
He said during his presentation he also touched on what the downtown patrol area encompasses because some people may think it is smaller than it is.
“We talked about the misconception of what downtown is, what the area of downtown is because people think it’s just a very small area and it’s much larger than that, so in a future presentation we want to actually show people when we talk about downtown what geographic area we really mean,” said Mehdizadeh.
He said police wanted to make sure people knew what the area was, because when residents hear the crime rate stats they get alarmed.
“That way when we give the numbers it’s not as alarming, like the numbers from 2022 we had over 11,700 calls for service in downtown, a combination of just about everything you can think of when people call the police,” said Mehdizadeh.
The LPS downtown patrol area encompasses everything between the river valley east to Mayor Magrath Drive and from 5 Ave. North to 6 Ave. South.
The next Community Conversation will take place on April 20 at St. Teresa of Calcutta School, 235 Mildred Dobbs Blvd North from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to discuss the North area of the city.
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I want to thank the LPS team and the Chief for allowing us to express our concerns. I respect our Chief and LPS, knowing that if you have 180 members, by the time your split them up into various departments, then 12 hour shifts, 4on/4off, there really are not that many left. For the staff they have, they do a very good job, but we need more boots on the ground with the growing issues on our streets. That is not the Chief’s fault, but lack of funding as well as difficulty recruiting members. We have a dedicated police force. Not many people are aware that many times we only have 8 or 10 police on patrol to respond to 911 calls for a city of over 100,000 people. That is one police officer for 10,000 to 12,000 people and if something like a serious domestic violence call happens, 4 of those officers respond, leaving 4 to 6 for over 100,000 people. That is not right, and it is unfair to officers and doesn’t provide the services we need while trying to stop this drug crisis from destroying our city! That needs to be changed!!!!!
There was a lot of great information given, but some of the stats can be misleading, for example, it stated there was a large decrease in small amounts of drugs on a person: Fact is that many police forces do not charge people for small amounts for personal use, for the most part, because of the grey areas created by BC and the federal government . . . the crown is not interested in prosecuting the charge. Anyone that spends any amount of time downtown sees open drug use often, and that means the addicts have it.
There were many good points brought up in the session by concerned citizens, although many were more not under police pervue. People wanted to express there concerns and frustration.
Although I respect our Chief I have to disagree with his comment that we should be silent regarding our concerns in our community regarding the crime and devastating impacts. He also stated something that frustrates me everytime I hear it, “we are better off than other communities, I can show you on my phone” . . . we are not other communities and we have an opportunity to stop our city turning out like those other communities if we stop the encampments and illegal behaviours on our streets now.
I am want to be pro-active, not re-active! When you allow these encampments and open drug use around/inside public buildings the issues increase . . .crime nearby increases . . . property damage increases . . . assaults and threats increase . . . organized crime and gangs embed themselves further into the community, making it harder to get rid of them.
All this comes at a cost to the taxpayer and last year the local, Lethbridge taxpayer paid over $14 million dealing with the issues on our streets in many areas, not including the federal and provincial taxpayer money poured into the issues.
I was not happy to only see 50 people show up! Do you want to see your city turn into another Vancouver DTES and most of the large cities in BC now?
This is our city! We are the taxpayer, the electorate and we do have a say on what we want to see or not see in our city, but change will not come unless you stand up for your city, your parks, your neighbourhoods . . .your taxdollars! Where were you? You should have taken the time to be there!
Today I noticed at least a dozen new faces on our streets, and they had serious tatoos, and acted tougher than our local gang members. It is spring time and you are going to see our city flooded with a few hundred more people from nearby communities as well as BC is now dumping there problem people on us . . . paying for them to come to Alberta. The number of EMS responses has increased today, seeing many responses for suspected overdoses, taking away more resources for responding to the rest of the city, and it isn’t even the time of month when they get their checks . . .
It is time you decided to stand up for your city! You can do something about . . . but if you don’t, then you will watch our city sink into the abyss!
It is much easier to stop it before it happens, then try to take it back after . . . much cheaper as well! How big is your wallet? Do you really want to burn up your money by ignoring the issues and hope they will go away?
It is time to get the city to be pro-active, instead of re-acting when it is too late.
We are planning information sessions and protests . . . will you come? Will you stand up for your city, your families? I have watched several people impacted that have lost their sons or daughters as this evil reaches further into this community, so if you think it is just a downtown thing, you are very wrong.
Watch this:
VANCOUVER IS DYING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT8OU8Yhs_s&ab_channel=AaronGunn
Take 1 hour out of your time!
“………He said the majority of them are assaults, but the key for the public to remember is that those are not just random people assaulting random individuals – they are usually people known to each other with the majority being part of the vulnerable population…….”
So the two senior citizens within 2 days that were attacked to steal their purses on the same block were known to the perpetrators? Which one would you classify as part of the vulnerable population?
One thing was made clear by one of the citizens who attended this meeting: the vulnerable population now has more rights than the citizens of this Lethbridge. Many of these vulnerable populations are not from this city and have never paid taxes in their lives. They are leeches!
Therefore, it was our fault that the lock on my shed was cut off in order to steal my children’s bicycles and other property because we did not have the $70-$90 lock that this police chief claims to have on his shed. Furthermore, we are not supposed to discuss how badly our community has been raped and pillaged by the scum he calls the most vulnerable, as doing so gives the community a bad name.
It was insulting to hear the Chief of this police force say those things!
Hear this, as a result of the issues my family and my kids experienced around here, we are moving after just living here for two years. It is unacceptable that you only have eight police officers available to respond to 911 calls, and I am curious as to who is responsible for ensuring that we have enough officers to safeguard the residents of this community.
I had to give this thought before posting. I was at the meeting and asked a number of questions or made statements.
I got the distinct impression from the Chief that if we did not talk about Lethbridge and kept a low profile that things would somehow become better. I found that quite baffling to be honest! The Chief sited examples of Kelowna, and used the “if you think we are bad, you should travel to Kelowna, then you would realize we are not! I do not understand that logic.
For Kelowna to be worse than Lethbridge, at one time, they had to be the same as Lethbridge is now, and then got worse! That’s why I and others were there, we are not interested in following the same trajectory as the “others”!
I have rarely ever heard any Chief of Police say, we have enough people. Its just not in the DNA of a police force to do so. That’s not a bad thing because it always tends to keep the strength of a Force slightly ahead of the Force of the Bad Guys. I think the Chief is doing a great job managing the people he has and trying to stay ahead of Crime in the City. However, he is undermanned by (if I remember correctly) 21 people that are paid positions that are not filled.
This does not surprise me. Society has changed, the youth of today are motivated by hell knows what, but they are not motivated to defend their community or their country any longer. It is why we cannot recruit people for the Police or Military as we were able to in the past. The Social issues they demand for service are just not compatible with these types of jobs. So in an effort to get anyone and everyone we can, we compromise on the the composition of the job, just to get manpower.
So one of two things has to change, either the police force changes their protocols and requirements to fit todays society (which I do not agree with) or we change how we treat the Criminal element. One or the other has to give. The concept of a police officer giving a criminal a warm hug to sooth his/her trauma is slowly replacing the rule of law. Some insist that is for the better
The more you denigrate your policing body with rules and regulations, the less ready the Police Officer is when confronting a serious situation. It is not a coincidence that as we speak of defunding the police, and how the police have to become more compassionate to an endless list of requests that what you produce is a confused police officer. A confused Police Officer can be swung to both ends of the extreme, if the initial assessment of a situation is wrong.
How you avoid the situations completely is you protect your Police. We do not do so in Canadian Society. We create rules and regulations that some single serving wannabe politician momentarily believes is a good thing and may garner him votes. The Woke among us, believe changing the fabric of Society creates a better society. Yet nothing is created with the understanding of what the impact is on our Police or Military. Both are to react to the changes made by politicians as if every change is inconsequential.
As we became a society of a kinder gentler approach to criminals, as we determined that underlying issues can play major roles in sentencing, as we determined that “honest he’s a good guy” could reduce sentencing to a minimum and everyone except you have human rights, the job of the Military and Police becomes more compromised and defeating.
Military and Policing jobs are quite defined, there is some leeway in interpretation for example 48kph in a 40kph zone but there is no leeway in 148kph in a 40kph zone. It is cut and dry. Where the problem now occurs is the Judicial System does not support the law. It interprets it under its own set of rules. Those rules include overcrowding which is a political problem. So this all leaks back to politicians not adjusting to the problems of today and tomorrow,
When was the last time a Jail or Prison built in Alberta? As soon as a politician speaks of such a thing, the woke suddenly decide all you need to do is speak nicely and hold a person’s hand and honest he won’t mug or rape old ladies again! That person then gets 500,000 likes on Facebook and the politician realizes he has just been put in a rock and hard place.
So 4 issues exist. Society becoming bleeding hearts, criminals get away with greater crimes with lessor punishment or deferred punishments. Politicians totally confused as to what to do, and the Police in the middle of an unmanageable situation.
What appears to be the answer? To most its simple, its those Damned Police, they are not doing their jobs!! Nope, its far deeper than that! Lethbridge’s existing problem revolves around drugs.
Lethbridge has a Nonprofit Addiction Lobby Group of significant size that believes its never the addicts fault, its always someone else’s, its your fault, its my fault, its societies fault, its histories fault, its the doctors fault, its the medical societies fault, its politicians fault, its the police’s fault, its the judicial systems fault, its emergency services fault! It’s always our lack of understanding that is at the heart of the issue, the only people that truly understand the situation are U of L Professors and nonprofits. They have the “fix for everything, trust them!
One thing is absolutely certain it’s never and I mean never the Addiction Lobby groups fault or the UofL, or the addicts fault because all you really have to do is hold his hand and he won’t rape that old lady again? Personal responsibility? What’s that, that’s old school?
We either change, or we lose our city and it will not be the Police’s fault, it will be our fault for allowing Lobby Groups and Edmonton, to control our city and its destiny, and it will be our fault for being so complacent!
Well said Dennis!