Rezoning beats: Edmonton police create 3 new downtown patrol areas
Edmonton police are re-zoning downtown beat divisions to cover areas considered high in crime, violence, and disorder that don't currently have dedicated patrols.
New beats will start in Cromdale, Oliver and Jasper West starting Sunday.
Police are redirecting 12 members from three other beats: Boyle Street, City Centre, and McCauley Quarters because the new Healthy Streets Operations Centre in Chinatown now covers most of these areas.
The police commission reviewed the plan at a public meeting Thursday at city hall, where Chief Dale McFee spoke about ongoing issues in core communities.
"We have a business community that are hurting and people potentially not coming into the downtown," McFee said during the meeting. "So we're taking some steps to realign our resources."
Police analyzed the downtown division over one year, from Oct.1, 2021, to Oct.31, 2022, and found the three neighbourhoods need the most help.
In one year, police received 5,525 calls for service related to violent crime, property crime and social disorder.
Insp. Brent Dahlseide said the beats are new for Oliver and Cromdale.
"Oliver has never had a beat," Dahlseide told news media after the meeting. "In our analysis we were able to see that was the second highest crime area as far as the four different zones we looked at. So it was a no-brainer."
The Oliver beat stretches from 116th to 121st streets and from 100th Avenue to 105th Avenue. Police had 1,757 calls for service from the area in the one-year period.
The Cromdale beat area, stretching from Stadium Road to Jasper Avenue and 95th Street to 82nd Street had the highest calls at 2,403.
Dahlseide said the fourth, Queen Mary Park, was left out of the new beat plan.
Jasper West, including Jasper Avenue West from 105th St. to 112th St., and 100th Avenue to 102nd Avenue, had 1,564 calls.
That area, which incorporates Kingsway business area, had beat cops before 2016.
Supt. Bart Lawczynski said adjusting the beats doesn't require new members or more money.
"These are existing resources that are coming out of old beat geographies and basically being placed in new beat geographies," he told the commission. "So it's kind of a net-zero in terms of resourcing."
Healthy Streets status
The City of Edmonton established the Healthy Streets Operations Centre last year, as part of its safety plan for Chinatown and downtown.
It has 16 EPS constables and two sergeants working in conjunction with community peace officers and paramedics.
"HSOC in itself is kind of like beats 2.0 — it's a hybrid of beats and social service in one lump together," Dahlseide said.
Firefighters and community safety liaisons are expected to join the teams in the coming weeks, the police report says.
The police plan to double the presence at HSOC, up to four sergeants and 32 constables by the end of 2024.
Sheriffs start
McFee welcomed the Alberta government's move to add 12 sheriffs to patrol the downtown core, scheduled to start at the end of the month.
"The sheriffs in particular, those are on-the-ground resources that we can deploy tomorrow," McFee said. "This option gives us more visibility."
McFee said they'll continue to reevaluate the need in different neighbourhoods and report back to the police commission in six months on the new beats and use of sheriffs.
Dahlseide said they'll be tracking calls for service over the next six months to see if they're going up or down.
One of the biggest parts of the program is communicating with business owners and residents.
"The feedback that our beat members get on a daily basis from those key stakeholders is really important for us to know if we're doing it right."
