Busting busy bad guys

Photo: Contributed

It only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch and it only takes few bad guys to make the city's crime statistics go up.

In the last three months of 2016, property crime in the city took a sharp rise with a whopping 27.58 per cent jump.

Property crime continued to rise in the early part of 2017, but by a fraction of the previous jump at 1.78 per cent.

However, by the end of the year, police had reversed the trend, with property crime falling by 30.54 per cent for the last quarter of 2017.

Vernon's top cop, Supt. Jim McNamara credited the hard work of the detachment in getting bad guys off the street.

"The vast majority of those B and E's are as a result of a few prolific offenders in this community. As our members target and apprehend those prolific offenders we see our property crime numbers going down,” said McNamara.

McNamara said hiring an officer to carry out communications duties with media outlets has also given the public more information on what police do on a daily basis.

Const. Kelly Brett took over as the communications officer several months ago.

"She is doing a fantastic job for us," said McNamara. "We are thrilled to have her onboard. Communication is one of our strategic priorities and she has done a fantastic job for us thus far."

McLeans Magazine ranked Vernon the ninth most dangerous city in Canada last year, but both McNamara and Brett disputed the claim.

Brett said while the annual crime severity report is based on police statistics, a number of factors can contribute positively, or negatively, including prolific offenders, serious offences (like attempt murder), and targeted enforcement by the police.

“Vernon is also a smaller city, and population size is a factor when determining rankings. A single crime - either violent or non-violent - can have a more significant impact on crime severity rankings than it would in larger centres,” said Brett.

“In 2016, Vernon experienced a number of violent incidents, including three where a firearm was discharged. These incidents, which were linked to the drug trade, would significantly impact the city's violent crime rating.”

Brett added for non-violent crime, the city experienced a spike in property-crime early in 2016, but targeted policing and pro-active initiatives resulted in the arrest of a number of prolific offenders.

“Once again, due to Vernon's relatively small population size even one prolific offender can significantly impact the non-violent crime rating,” she said.