Times are changing, folks. And not for the better.
The ugly underbelly of Chemainus and Crofton has been exposing itself far too often this year. We can choose to ignore it if we wish, but it’s not going away.
Someone on social media called this ‘the year of the siren’ and that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. There seems to be a far greater number of ‘incidents’ in 2018 than usual involving fire, ambulance and police calls.
Try as we might it’s difficult to keep up to all the stories pertaining to crime in a newspaper published once a week. By the time the police get back to us, something else has usually happened to divert our attention onto other stories before the paper comes out.
Suffice it to say there is a lot of crime going on around the region right now and the RCMP is clearly taxed, but doing the best it can with available resources.
North Cowichan/Duncan detachment Inspector Chris Bear just reported to Duncan council the number of calls coming into police has increased seven per cent in the first six months of 2018.
Sirens can be heard in and around Duncan all the time. The police presence has also been more noticeable in Chemainus and Crofton while the fire departments and ambulance personnel seem to be constantly in motion throughout July.
We can break all this down into three major categories that seem to be generating responses most often.
The first, of course, pertains to traffic accidents. And we know there are many, particularly on the Trans-Canada Highway where the larger volume combined with erratic driving does not make for a very good mixture.
River Road, Henry Road and Mount Sicker Road intersections in this region have accidents waiting to happen whenever someone runs a light or makes a dangerous turn.
And then, out of the blue, we get a report of a three-car accident at Robert Street in Crofton. There’s clearly no need for something like that to ever happen there, other than horrific driving habits.
Police attention has also been focused on an abundance of drug-related activity.
The houses police entered on search warrants last month in Chemainus and Crofton exposed a substantial amount of drugs and weapons.
It was pretty scary for residents to see such a high concentration of police in Crofton to take down these operations.
That obviously involved a great deal of work behind the scenes to identify these alleged drug traffickers. And there’s way more out there, right in our own backyard looking to cash in on the drug market that’s out of control with widespread use of fentanyl, in particular.
The old Crofton Elementary School has become a hangout for drug users and young people scrawling their nasty graffiti, but a community group is on the verge of stamping that out after pressuring the school district to do more about security and upkeep until the building is finally demolished.
We haven’t even mentioned theft or scammers yet so that’s next.
Thefts are occurring all over the area on a regular basis. People are reporting items stolen out of their yards, cars from back alleys and worse.
Much of this activity is related to drugs because addicts here or the many transients coming through will do anything to get money to feed their habit.
There have been break-ins around town also associated with that activity and the slick criminals who try to steal items from stores by every means possible.
Luckily, people like Judy Istace at Beyond the Usual recognize some of the tricks and she alerted others about what to watch out for earlier this year when one scammer came into her store.
It all adds up to a bit of a mess that’s going to take a lot of hard work for ordinary citizens of our towns to help the clean-up effort.
One thing that works effectively and we can all do, because police can’t be everywhere, are Blockwatches. Look out for each other and report any suspicious activity to the police.
Crime is a serious problem all around the Island right now that needs to be eradicated.
Look at that incident of a male and a female who traversed the Island, stealing a vehicle in Victoria and a boat in Nanaimo that was abandoned in Port McNeill and then wound up finally getting arrested in Chemainus. Ridiculous.
Criminals know no bounds, but if we keep the heat on them, the worst of it can be stopped.
(Don Bodger is the editor of the Chemainus Valley Courier).