Lethbridge Police Chief reacts to “law enforcement” comments by UCP Leader Jason Kenney

“Law enforcement should not be shrugging its shoulders. They should be overturning the tables to track down the dealers who brought that into the local market. So, I don’t accept a shrug of the shoulders. If I’m Premier, I will expect our police services to spare no effort at tracking down the dealers who are bringing that kind of poison here into Lethbridge, the Blood Reserve and elsewhere.”

Asked for his reaction to those comments, at Wednesday’s (Sept. 26) Police Commission Meeting, Lethbridge Police Chief Rob Davis said he’d be happy to speak with Kenney one on one in the future.

“It’s election time. He has to say what he has to say, I appreciate that. It would be nice if he reached out to me. So maybe next time he’s in town, he could do that.”

During the meeting Insp. Tom Ascroft was asked by a member of the Police Commission whether there were crime or nuisance issues related to users of the supervised consumption site and in the surrounding area. He admitted “it is a problem.”

When asked to further explain, Davis said “everyone sees it.”

“You just hang out downtown and you see there’s a lot more people on the streets. And to be quite candid… their possessions are on their backs, so I think that speaks to several issues here in the city. A lack of housing for people in need. It may speak to some challenges in the facilities that already exist. So you know, the city and stakeholders, we have to work together to address that.”

Davis also spoke of the four pillars of harm reduction being enforcement, education, rehabilitation and prevention. And two of the three pillars are missing, while only one of the pillars is being provincially funded.

by Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

Lethbridge Police Chief reacts to “law enforcement” comments by UCP Leader Jason Kenney

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