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The number of calls to Saskatoon police has returned to pre-pandemic levels after dipping for the last two years.
That’s according to Saskatoon Police Chief Troy Cooper, who caught up with CKOM’s John Gormley on Thursday.
“In 2019 we had so many calls, and then in 2020, 2021 we saw this drop in calls for service,” Cooper said. “That’s unfortunately returned back in 2022.”
Cooper said 911 operators take about 120,000 calls per year, with calls for police making up 80,000 to 90,000 of them. In 2022, Cooper said police fielded about 8,800 more calls than the average.
About half of the additional calls were related to social disorder issues, Cooper said, including calls about disturbances and suspicious people.
“We really did see the impact of addictions and homelessness in the community,” Cooper said.
Property crime was up in 2022, Cooper said, along with thefts. When it comes to violent crimes, however, Cooper said the only significant increase was related to armed robbery.
Cooper said many of those robberies saw victims menaced with a weapon and pressured to give up their belongings. Many of the incidents, Cooper added, take place “in and around areas where there was services provided for things like the wellness centres and supervised consumption sites.”
Many of those incidents were related to either alcohol or drug addictions, the chief noted.
“Alcohol often leads to additional violent crime, whereas we see with drug addictions we’ll see increases in property crime,” Cooper said.
“The armed robberies … seeing increases in those types of offending, to us, tells us there’s an increased presence of addictive drugs in the community.”
Cooper said drug addiction has created some concerning trends in Saskatoon.
“When we had an increased level of crystal meth in the community,” Cooper said.
“We saw a lot of psychosis, a lot of people that needed medical attention for that. With the presence of opioids like fentanyl, it’s very easy to overdose and die … particularly if you don’t know fentanyl is present in the drugs you’re using.”
Canada is also becoming a bigger fentanyl producer and exporter, Cooper said, which makes the drug more accessible and cheaper. The chief said he’s worried that the availability of fentanyl will lead to even more overdose deaths in Saskatchewan in the year ahead.
