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OUR VIEW JAN. 9: Grand Forks' finest not like rest of province

There was no regional breakdown of opinions of the RCMP in a recent poll but based on evidence, Grand Forks' detachment is doing fine.

The RCMP seems to be getting a bum rap lately.

Yes there have been reports of sexual harassment amongst its ranks and reports and allegations of officers assaulting suspects and in fact, just last week, there was an Ipsos Reid poll suggesting that people across the country, including in B.C., were losing faith in the force.

According to the poll, 67 per cent of people in the province were “dissatisfied with management’s performance.”

Sixty-nine per cent of people polled were of the opinion that RCMP officers were doing a “good” or “great” job but according to reports, that is less than 82 per cent five years ago.

There was no mention of a regional breakdown for opinions of RCMP in the province in the poll but based on some evidence, the Grand Forks RCMP is doing a fine job.

There have been no reports of local Mounties harassing or assaulting people recently and while there was a report a few years ago brought to the Gazette’s attention, the person reporting would later say that he had met with the officials to resolve the matter.

In fact, there have been a number of commendations for the local detachment based on the Grand Forks Gazette’s Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down feature.

Local RCMP and officers have been lauded for stopping to help people in accidents and giving tours of the detachment.

A local constable even volunteered his time to assist the Grand Forks Gazette with a CounterAttack story it was doing.

On top of that, the RCMP are doing the job based on the 2012 Report on Policing: Boundary Regional Detachment, that said crimes throughout the Boundary decreased 19 per cent between 2010 and 2011.

Residential break and enters (B&E) dropped by 56 per cent while B&Es to businesses decreased 64 per cent in that time.

Assaults in the city of Grand Forks also decreased in that time.

Members of the detachment are also active in the community, appearing in parades and at Remembrance Day and Grand Forks International baseball tournament ceremonies.

Confidence might be dropping in the force in the country and province but the RCMP in Grand Forks has done nothing to contribute to that.

– The Grand Forks Gazette