Proactive policing project wraps up in River Heights

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This article was published 07/10/2019 (2464 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Police Service officers stopped 170 people on the streets of River Heights and Crescentwood and arrested 26 suspects during a 10-week proactive policing program aimed at reducing property crime and vandalism in the community.

The program, dubbed Project Guardian, included increased night patrols and deliberate police interventions — called subject stops — to deter crime in the community, explained West District Insp.-Cmdr. Mike Herman.

“River Heights through the summer months generally has a spike and it’s been consistent over the last number of years, so we initiated Project Guardian to address that based on our SPI (Smart Policing Initiative) data,” Herman said.

Of the 170 people police stopped during the project, some were residents of the community out for a walk in backlanes or otherwise going about their business, but others police stopped had criminal intentions, Herman said.

“Police are on patrol and actually stop and have a conversation with those individuals to ascertain what they’re doing in the neighbourhood, and as a result of that 26 were taken into custody,” he said.

Herman said individual stops are conducted based on crime trends identified for the community through the SPI. Using data compiled from police reports filed by residents and current weekly crime trends, Winnipeg Police have determined common routes used by suspects to access the community and commit property theft or vandalism. Herman said residential areas south of the Maryland Bridge and the footbridge from St. James tend to report higher instances of crime and police resources are deployed accordingly.

“The crime data, basically of victimized locations, kind of goes directly north right through the neighbourhood, and you can pretty much pinpoint a geographical location as to where most activities occur,” he explained.

Other cues for an officer to conduct a subject stop are large bags, backpacks and bikes. In many cases, individuals whose intentions are suspect are asked to leave by police officers, Herman said. No interventions, such as establishing connections with community resource centres or social programs, are provided during these stops, he confirmed.

“In essence, for proactive policing we’re looking at those areas of corridors, and we ended up almost, as they enter the neighbourhood, having those conversations with them, and a lot of those individuals who were undoubtedly coming into the neighbourhood to commit crimes turned around and went the other way.

“They hadn’t done anything at that point in time, but we certainly identified them, we know who they are,” Herman said.

Some of the 26 people arrested during Project Guardian were taken into custody for stolen vehicles, weapons, and drugs. However the most common arrests were for outstanding warrants or breaches of conditions, Herman said.

“I would suggest that the apprehension rate was lower because we did more spot checking before they could actually get into the community to commit a crime,” Herman said. “They were directed at the periphery and they recognized the police presence and went elsewhere.”

As Project Guardian winds down, Herman said residents are encouraged to continue reporting crime to the WPS especially those whose property tends to be hit repeatedly.

“There are citizens who have been victimized three or four times and where their car has been broken into parked in the rear lane and items are stolen out of vehicles. It gets to the point where a lot of citizens will leave their cars open, thinking that their windows won’t get broken.

“Eventually they stop reporting it because they become numb to being a victim, and when they don’t report, we don’t get that data, we don’t get that spike in that area,” he said.