Everyone needs a little help sometimes and that includes the RCMP.
A group of 18 Okotoks citizens act as the eyes and ears for the police on the weekends, patrolling the streets, looking for anything out of the ordinary and keeping a presence in problem spots. They are looking to almost double their numbers to add one more patrol vehicle on Friday and Saturday nights.
“The RCMP are taxed sometimes,” said Citizens on Patrol Okotoks president Denyse Geiger.
Citizens on Patrol regrouped in 2015 at the request of RCMP. It is the third incarnation of Citizens on Patrol (COP) in Okotoks. Geiger was part of the original group, which came together around 20 years ago.
“The RCMP and the Town felt it was important to have,” Geiger said.
She took some time off when she was raising her children. One of her sons became an RCMP officer and Geiger said it piqued her interest in again patrolling the streets of Okotoks.
She said there is now a strong group of 18 volunteers who spend four to five hours one night a month on a Friday or Saturday driving around, acting as a second set of eyes and ears for the police.
“Some nights it is very quiet and all you see are a lot of deer and rabbits and some nights it is busy,” she said.
The COP volunteers go out in pairs, crisscrossing the town in vehicles with the goal of covering all of Okotoks within four to five hours.
Volunteers need to have access to a vehicle and pay for their own gas. They are equipped with a kit that includes binoculars, a floodlight, a scanner and a radio with a dedicated line to the RCMP.
“We keep a scanner with us so we know where the RCMP are and we try to go where they can’t be,” Geiger said.
“If there is an area where they have been having problems with car break-ins we will go there. We do patrols if they have a hot spot. We have a list of communities and areas that need an extra eye.”
At locations that have been the target of vandals, such as the community garden and the skateboard park, they will stop and shine their floodlight to put people on alert that these spots are being watched.
She said in the past a watchful COP member alerted police to a drunk driver, who later was found by RCMP and charged.
The group is looking for 13 to 15 more volunteers to add a second patrol car each night. She said the growth in Okotoks has made it tough for one car to cover the entire town in four hours.
The commitment is one patrol per month and one two-hour meeting per month. She said the patrols usually start around 9 p.m.
“It’s a great opportunity for busy people who want to do something positive in their community,” she said. “It’s six hours per month so it’s not very time intensive.”
Anyone wishing to volunteer with COP needs to fill out an application and drop it off to the Okotoks RCMP detachment, who will run a free criminal background check. Volunteers must be at least 18-years-old.
For more information or to get an application email Geiger at [email protected]
Citizens on Patrol Okotoks is also looking for funding to help it pay for some of its costs, such as photocopying and other out-of-pocket expenses.
Anyone who’d like to give some financial assistance to the group can also email Geiger.
