By James Peters

City’s top cop says major incidents are taking their toll on the Kamloops force

Mar 5, 2019 | 3:43 PM

KAMLOOPS — “Unbelievable”

That’s how Kamloops RCMP Supt. Syd Lecky describes the litany of major police incidents Kamloops has seen in recent months.

Lecky presented Kamloops council with the detachment’s 2018 year-end report Tuesday.

During his report, Lecky took the time to express that all the high profile incidents and investigations — some of which involved brutal acts of violence — have taken their toll on the local force.

“We’ve had a number of major police incidents. Certainly, traumatic calls for service. We’ve tried to address these with critical incident debriefings, but it doesn’t begin to tell the story for the impact that it’s having on our staff,” said Lecky.

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“As well-staffed as we are, this has been unbelievable.”

The September, 2017 murder of Red Scorpion co-founder Konaam Shirzad touched off a series of violent incidents in the city.

Lecky says one of the most traumatic events for the force was a shootout with a suspect in Rose Hill in September of 2018.

The suspect was killed in shootout, and the investigation has been taken over by the Independent Investigations Office (IIO).

“When we have an event such as the IIO investigation, for example, that’s taken a couple of our folks off the road and we’re still waiting for the investigation to work itself through. The significance of that single event and the morale… the impact it has on their co-workers around them — it’s very impactful.”

CFJC Today will have more on the RCMP’s year-end report Wednesday.