It’s been a busy week and Labour Day long weekend for Oak Bay’s finest.
Between Aug. 28 and Sept. 3, Oak Bay Police said it responded to a total of 101 calls for service, a seemingly-high number for the Oak Bay area.
But how it looks on paper and what that number really means is rather different, noted Oak Bay Police Deputy Chief Ray Bernoties, adding this kind of call volume is not too out of the ordinary.
“It’s maybe slightly above average, but that includes a long weekend and it’s summer,” he said. “Those might of slightly impacted our call volume, but it’s not extraordinarily different than what we’d normally see. It’s not uncommon for us to have 12 to 14 calls a day.”
Calls throughout the week varied from small vehicle accidents, to property thefts, missing persons, neighbour disputes or disturbance calls. Even finding a dead animal.
“In the course of an average day, we just encounter such a wide variety of calls, it’s hard to describe any kind of pattern,” Bernoties said, pointing out that not all of those 101 calls are emergency calls, but general calls for service.
“That’s not 101 incidents where police are driving with lights and sirens on, it’s just 101 files where we have responded in some way. Some of those can be neighbourhood disputes, minor property crimes, or even that someone found property.”
Still, despite Oak Bay being a very safe community, Bernoties said Oak Bay Police officers keep busy and vigilant to not only deal with crime and issues in the community head-on, but also prevent it.
“Our members are involved in really trying to provide a high level of service, so that when they do attend a call, we generally try to spend the necessary time to ensure that everyone there feels safe and looked after,” he said.