BANFF – Community members let Banff RCMP know what their concerns are around town at the fourth annual community meeting on Tuesday (April 30).
Breakout tables were arranged for residents to talk about such topics of sexualized violence, evacuation planning, community safety, mental health, traffic and fraud/cybercrime coming forward.
“These are topics that tend to come up repeatedly when we talk to the community or the things that we get the most questions about during our community engagement initiatives, like Coffee With a Cop, etc,” said Staff Sgt. Mike Buxton-Carr, Banff detachment commander.
Buxton-Carr said he hasn’t heard any new areas of concern rather than appreciation that the RCMP are reaching out to the community, but they are still hoping the community will continue to come forward with any matters.
“We do hope to hear new information if it’s out there,” he said. “We can’t assume the crime statistics tell us everything about a community. We can’t assume that everything about a community is reported to police.”
Sgt. Natalie Rice said that more sexual violence has been reported, but the statistic doesn’t show whether it’s because there are more sexual violence crimes or if people feel more comfortable now to report them.
She also explained when reporting a sexual violent crime, the victim can go as far as they want, meaning that the RCMP can collect all the evidence, but it does not have to go to court.
“It’s victim led, and it's at their pace and what they want to do," said Rice. “Sometimes it’s just that they just wanted to have it reported and the other ones do want to proceed to the court system."
A hot topic in the room was mental health, with discussion surrounding the upcoming Banff Mental Health and Addiction Week (May 6-10).
“There were discussions around how to engage individuals that are struggling with mental health to go to this, like it’s for them,” said Const. Melanie Garroway, member of the Regional Police and Crisis Team.
The Banff Mental Health and Addiction Week has 25 free events for individuals to take advantage of, whether they themselves are struggling or they know someone who is and wish to help.
“I think that this mental health week will be a good idea for both people who are struggling, friends with people who are struggling or caregivers or what be it. I think there's probably going to be something for everyone,” said Garroway.
Buxton-Carr said that they will continue to listen to the public concerns.
“If there’s one message I’d like to get across to the public is that we’re trying to be open and receptive to new information. We care and we’re listening,” he said.
