Hundreds of Chase residents showed up to a town hall meeting to discuss crime in the small Shuswap community on April 20, 2023.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Sandra Welton

Residents of a small community in the Shuswap are fed up with crime and gathered en masse to meet with police and elected officials.

Hundreds of people packed into Chase Community Hall Thursday night to talk crime with RCMP and village officials about property crime.

"People are just tired of having stuff stolen and feeling unsafe," meeting organizer Sandra Welton said. "We just want to clean up the town and make it safe."

She said there's a group of two houses and an apartment building where criminal behaviour seems to be focused and stolen property often shows up in those yards. She also said one of those homes welcomes people who are homeless and tents are often pitched in the yard.

"We need to get these people the help they need to clean up the town," she said.

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There are no emergency shelters in the village and the nearest community to find adequate services for someone who's homeless would be nearly an hour away in Kamloops.

Welton said a small group of vigilantes began patrolling the village, sparking warnings from local RCMP. She didn't mention any criminal incidents that stemmed from that group, but the fact they're patrolling is part of what prompted the meeting.

Statistics show crime has fluctuated in the small village of nearly 4,000 people, but the police-reported crime rate has reached a 10-year high, according to StatsCan.

Welton said RCMP presented those statistics, but also encouraged residents to make sure they're reporting property crime when it happens, which Welton said isn't consistently happening.

Three Chase RCMP officers, two village councillors, a top village official and a representative for MLA Todd Stone showed up at the April 20 meeting, but mayor David Lepsoe opted not to join.

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Coun. Colin Connett said he joined the meeting as a resident, rather than in his official capacity has an elected councillor.

He said the turnout was impressive for the small community, but doubted crime in the community is worse than it has been traditionally.

"I think a lot of people go on Facebook and they see that stuff," he said. "Then there's definitely people getting hit too, there's no two ways about it."

He praised the work of Chase RCMP and said they recently cleaned up a "nest" of "rampant" gas thefts and property crime at the village public works yard.

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Asked whether the mayor should have attended, Connett said it's a "free country" and the mayor wasn't required to show.

Lepsoe didn't respond to a request for comment from iNFOnews.ca.

Welton, however, was disappointed Lepsoe chose not to join after contacting him and other village officials directly.

"It's an embarrassment the mayor didn't feel he could come," Welton said, while praising RCMP for taking the time to meet with hundreds of concerned residents.

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