Police open community link in Bridgeland-Riverside to boost presence, connect with residents

A one-year pilot project between the Calgary Police Service (CPS) and Bridgeland-Riverside Community Association (BRCA) aims to connect with residents and quell community concerns about crime and disorder.

A Community Engagement Link will work out of the BRCA building, creating a remote office to allow people who live nearby to speak to police, express concerns or receive crime prevention information.

"We wanted to ensure that the residents were served equally as well as anybody else in our district here," Acting Sgt. Anthony Thompson said.

"So (the) door's open. We are making ourselves completely accessible to the public here."

To start, officers will be available to speak to the public at the BRCA every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., but the plan is to add more hours during evenings and weekends.

The current District 3 station is near North Hill Park, about a 17-minute drive from Bridgeland-Riverside, and the BRCA community link will allow for more officer presence and quicker response times to the area.

"A lot of the issues don't get reported to CPS and we're trying to encourage people to do that because we know how you need to have those sorts of statistics that drive a lot of things in terms of how neighbourhoods are policed," said Alex MacWilliam, BRCA president.

It's the second initiative to be launched in the policing district in as many months.

The Mobile Community Engagement Vehicle moves throughout the area to allow people to connect with officers without having to travel to the district office.

"We heard from the citizens in their citizens survey that Calgarians want a more proactive engagement from their police service. That's what we want to offer," Thompson said.

The initiative is welcome news for Doug Gregory, a resident of the neighbourhood who is also co-owner of Mari Bakeshop.

The shop was broken into and had some money stolen out of the till overnight in December.

"A lot of times, the lifeblood of most neighbourhoods is retail local shops -- local cafés, businesses -- and if we're all continually suffering with broken windows or loss of earnings and days-long closures, then it doesn't help any of the local neighbourhood," Gregory said.