On Friday, November 8, 2019, Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth announced that he was realigning resources throughout the police service in an effort to fight violent crime.
Smyth said officers will be reassigned from Major Crimes, community relations, station duty and traffic and put into general patrol, foot patrol and investigative units.
“The level of violence, the level of property crime, it’s bad,” said Smyth.
Winnipeg has reached 40 homicides so far in 2019 with 11 of those occurring within the past month.
More than 70 officers are expected to be reassigned while the police service gets a handle on the backlog caused by violent crime including homicides, assaults and robberies.
In the short term the north, east and west police stations will be closed to the public and those needing to come to a station will be redirected to police headquarters. Headquarters staff will be available between 7:00 am and 5:30 pm seven days a week.
Online services and phone services will be available 24-hours a day.
Smyth said that there will be a reduction in traffic enforcement including the check stop program. The school and crime prevention programs will also be reduced until further notice.
Smyth says he expects the reassignments to be in place until after the holidays.
© News4.ca 2020
