The city of Surrey, B.C., is pledging bold action to combat its record-high murder rate and ongoing safety concerns from residents.
A mayoral task force addressing the city’s problems released its highly anticipated report Friday morning. Among its recommendations are a beefed up presence of police and foot patrols, the addition of a bicycle police squad and the expanded use of surveillance cameras and CCTV.
Hundreds of outraged citizens took part in rallies calling on the city to do more about crime after hockey mom Julie Paskall, 53, was beaten to death outside of the Newton Hockey Arena as she waited to pick up her son at the end of December.
Days after her killing, an interim update on the task force said that the vast majority of Surrey’s murders are associated with gang or drug ties. It also prompted the redeployment of RCMP to focus on Newton and Whalley, and targeted drug dealers and flop houses.
Today’s task force recommendations are focused around what are considered high-risk locations: crack houses and unregulated recovery and mental health houses that the city says are causing so many problems.
On Monday, a new ‘excessive nuisance’ bylaw will be put introduced in front of council to make it a lot easier to shut those down.
“An excessive nuisance bylaw directed at property owners whose property generates repeated calls for service from emergency personnel,” said Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts.
Police have already identified 340 houses of interest, and executed 15 warrants.
“We have arrested 175 people, seizing drugs like heroin, cocaine, synthetic drugs like speed and cyrstal meth and marijuana,” said Supt. Bill Fordy.
Eight houses have already been destroyed.
A total of 24 additional RCMP are being added to the force in the next two years, along with 28 people who are going to be involved with community patrols.
There will also be new traffic cameras that will be recording license plates of cars entering and exiting the city.
Surrey’s current ratio of police to residents is one officer for every 730 people. That pales in comparison to Vancouver, a smaller region, which has one cop for every 495 people.
A suspect has not yet been caught in Paskall’s murder, but police and the mayor have pledged to find her killer.
Surrey saw a record-setting 25 homicides in 2013.
