Cochrane RCMP, Corporal Troy Savinkoff, was pretty proud of the successful work the general duty members of the detachment did this past week in dealing with a number of property crimes. 

Savinkoff says this week all six arrests were handled by the responding members and although arrests were made, their job is not done yet. "Once we deal with them, we just don't wash our hands of them. We follow up with them if they do get released on conditions and that is where part two comes in. We work those conditions; we ensure they are abiding by their curfews or reporting conditions or whatever is required because that is the next part."

With social media chatter buzzing about the amount of crime going on in the Morley area, Cpl. Savinkoff sets the record straight on what crime actually looks like for the Cochrane jurisdiction. "It's easy for everyone to get on Morley, and obviously, there were a few offenders from Morley in these last particular cases, but we have three distinct issues in the Cochrane area. We have locals that we are aware of and have charged, we also have plenty of offenders that come in from Calgary and other jurisdictions and, yes, there are people in Morley as well, but these people live in any one of our communities, and we have strategies when it comes to dealing with all three of these issues."

The Cochrane RCMP detachment police's a huge jurisdiction including communities such as Bragg Creek, Redwood Meadows, Springbank, Bearspaw, Stoney Nakoda, Cochrane and all the areas in between, and, what many don't realize is our RCMP force is made up two different funded members. "When people make comments about the Cochrane detachment, they sometimes see us as a single entity, but the reality is that is not entirely correct. The Cochrane detachment has a rural police force that is provided with provincial funding that polices Bragg Creek, Redwood Meadows, the highways as well as Morley, and they also have a municipal component. Now that's not to say we have members working exclusively in both areas, but we always work to maintain minimum staffing levels at all times within the Town of Cochrane. There is the opportunity that if something serious happens in a rural community, that there can be some municipal members that go out there to help back them up and support them, but that goes both ways. If, there was a large incident like a robbery that happened in the municipality than those provincial resources would be utilized to come into this area. We also have a rather vibrant provincial traffic unit that works out of this detachment which several people benefit from having additional traffic enforcement because of the location of that provincial unit. People see a police car, and they see it as one entity, but the reality is there are multiple units and sections within this detachment and all with different mandates to serve the community that the funding is coming from."

Assumptions are easily made on who is committing the most crimes, where the crimes are being committed, and if all those factors combined leave Cochrane in a deficit type of situation, shares Savinkoff. "Crime committed by Morley people is not a big issue in this community, it was for a little bit last year when we had some active vehicle thefts from Morley, but it's really not. We deal more with some of our local people and a great deal with interjurisdictional criminals that come out of Calgary. It is my opinion that this municipality benefits a great deal because we have the provincial members out of here and because it is a give and take. Do we go out to Morley quite a bit?! Yes, but we are 50% provincial and 50% municipal here. I don't believe the Town of Cochrane benefits negatively from it, if anything, I think they get some extra benefits."

Lastly, Corporal Savinkoff states between the hard work put in by the general duty members, both rural and municipal, and the preventative measures being used by the Crime Reduction Unit that Cochrane is in fairly good hands when it comes to criminal activity.

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