Police Still Busy Despite Drop In Calls

The Saint John Police Force saw a considerable drop in calls in recent weeks due to the pandemic.

New figures released by the force show there were 18,385 calls during the first four months of 2019.

This year, they received 16,168 calls during the same time period — a drop of 2,217 calls, or 12 per cent.

“The reality is there’s just more people staying home and working from home,” said Jim Hennessy, manager of communications and public information for the force.

Motor vehicle collisions are down by 35 per cent as fewer people are on the roads while property crime has fallen by nearly 17 per cent.

“Unfortunately, there are people that do like to break into people’s houses, but with more people working and staying home, it certainly makes it tough for a thief to try to gain entry into someone’s home or garage or vehicle,” said Hennessy.

But the drop in calls for service does not meal police officers have not been busy in other areas.

Hennessy said they are still working on active investigations and keeping up with patrols throughout the city.

“The extra duties that we’ve had making sure the patrol vehicles are cleaned after every shift, making sure the work areas are cleaned after every shift,” he said.

“We’ve had extra duties simply because we’ve had to break up the patrols so we weren’t doing business as normal. We are back to full patrol now, still adhering to all of the physical distancing rules and everything that’s going on.”

Hennessy said they are still crunching the numbers to see what sort of financial impact the pandemic has had on the force.

“We’ve had to reach out and provide extra personal protective equipment, we’ve had to purchase extra cleaning products, we’ve had to bring in portable handwashing stations,” he said.

The final figures are expected to be available within the next few weeks, he said.