How police in Kamloops deal with problem homes in the city | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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How police in Kamloops deal with problem homes in the city

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KAMLOOPS - After a week when Kamloops RCMP were called to one home several times — leading to multiple arrests and charges — police have labelled it a "problem residence".

That means they will be keeping a close eye on it for awhile.

Determining what makes a problem residence and how police may respond is done on a case-by-case basis, Kamloops RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Jodi Shelkie tells iNFOnews.ca.

"A house could become a problem home based on the number of neighbours that phone in to tell us that suspicious activity is happening there and what our findings are," says Shelkie. "It can be from calls that we’ve received to go there ourselves."

Within one week, police responded to the home in the 400 block of Royal Avenue on the city's North Shore for an alleged stabbing, a possible hostage situation at the home, and finally an unfounded report of a home invasion in progress.

Several times, neighbours were blocked from reaching their homes or had to deal with a large police presence.

Shelkie couldn’t say how many homes have been deemed ‘problems’ but because all of these incidents happened within just a few days at 414 Royal Ave., police considered it a problem home quickly.

"It may only be a handful of calls, but because they're so serious in nature, right away it’s a problem house for us," Shelkie says. "There's no kind of threshold that has to be met, it's kind of when it gets to a point where we’re very familiar with the residence, the address, then we will probably move it on to our CompStat."

CompStat is a management tool that identifies emerging trends in property crime and helps coordinate the RCMP's response to the problem. These places are called hot zones, and can help point out problem residences, problem people and vehicles associated to crime.

Shelkie says every two weeks, officers involved with CompStat meet to determine which residences will remain problem homes, which ones will become new problem homes, and which ones will lose the title. At these meetings, officers will discuss specific homes, the number of complaints, and the number of times officers have to attend.

A bylaw introduced to the City of Kamloops within the past year has also taken aim at these problem homes. The Good Neighbour bylaw targets homes that have frequent nuisance calls, and unsightly properties among other things.

Once the RCMP has identified a problem house, the crime reduction unit will become involved to determine who lives at the home, if they rent or own it, check the criminal record of anyone who lives there or frequents the house, and if the renters, owners or visitors of the home have parole or probation conditions.

Shelkie says police can attribute more resources to these homes including foot patrols, extra general duty cruiser patrols on the area, and the crime reduction unit going there on a regular basis to see who's there.

Shelkie says at the home on Royal Avenue, there are mainly two renters living there and it's not clear if the owner lives there as well, but she points out the owner is aware of what’s happened, although they have not made any commitment to making a change.


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