Chatham-Kent police officers are back walking a beat this month.
During Friday and Saturday afternoons and evenings, officers will walk the beat in the downtowns of Chatham and Wallaceburg.
Kirk Earley, chief of the Chatham-Kent Police Service, said the feedback after the first weekend was quite positive.
“Judging by some of the emails I got and when I was in a few shops talking, they just loved it,” he said. “We’re going to try it for the rest of the month and probably do it into September.”
Officers walk the beat from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays in the heart of Wallaceburg and Chatham. Earley said there are no analytics to tangibly show actual crimes being prevented, but there will be other ways to gauge success.
When officers complete their beats, Earley said they’ll complete and submit reports.
“We’ll see the interactions and if there was any enforcement,” he said. “We’ll analyze and see if there has been a reduction in calls.”
He is confident there will be.
“Key parts of the project are to engage the community and increase visibility. It’s a crime deterrent,” he said.
Chandra Clarke, co-owner of Turns & Tales on King Street, said the increased presence is appreciated.
“We’re happy to see more police attention to the issues downtown, for sure,” she said.
Earley said having officers walk a beat can be very beneficial.
“It was something that had been spoken to me about, and something I did when I first started (as a police officer),” he said. “It is traditionally an effective strategy. It builds relationships with the community. It builds and enhances trust and engagement.”
Clarke would like to see more done, and not from a police perspective, to address downtown issues involving homeless people.
“This is only going to be a partial solution to the problem we’re having,” she said. “These folks need some help. They need accommodations and treatment. We need a more permanent solution to the homeless problem in Chatham-Kent.”
Having police officers “shoo them along from one spot to another hasn’t worked for other municipalities,” Clarke continued. “This really shouldn’t be a police issue. These are folks who are struggling; they’re down on their luck. We want to see solutions that are going to help these folks get back on their feet.”
Earley agreed.
“From a policing perspective, we agree that this is not something we can arrest our way out of. This is a community issue, which involves community stakeholders, Public Health, fire, EMS, police and really all aspects of our municipal team.”
But Earley added there are benefits to increased interaction between police and local homeless people.
“This also allows our officers to build trust and enhances relationships with the individuals at the encampment,” he said.
Case law out of Waterloo prevents police from forcefully dismantling and removing homeless encampments.
Earley stressed the need to build trust with individuals.
“I think the key message is this is an ‘us’ issue; community, police and the municipality. We will continue to work together to get the supports the individuals need by building trust and rapport with each of them,” he said. “Any sort of enforcement is and should be a last resort.”
Earley would like to see officers walking the beat in downtown Wallaceburg and Chatham continue in warm months in future years.
“We’ll look at our deployment strategy,” he said. “A full (staff) complement would allow us to do foot patrols without the officers getting called out for other calls.”
He said the benefits go beyond business owners.
“This is absolutely vital. Our community loves it; our businesses love it; and once some of our younger members do it (walk the beat), they’ll see how much support there is in our community for the police service.”
Choosing the 2 p.m.-10 p.m. time is for two reasons, Earley said. One is that crime analysis numbers indicate those hours on Fridays and Saturdays are when there is a spike in the number of people who are walking about in the downtowns, while the second is calls for service increase later in the night, making it hard to staff the foot patrols past that point.
The foot patrols are on the table for future police strategy in Chatham-Kent, and Earley said there is more to be discussed. The strategic plan for the police service needs refreshing at the end of this year. There is a public survey where people can offer input. It can be accessed at https://ca1se.voxco.com/S2/55/2024/.
The survey is confidential and anonymous, police officials said, and is hosted by a partner company so the CKPS won’t see who completed the responses.
The online survey will run until Aug. 23.
