Call to re-open the Winnipeg district police stations closed to the public
Posted February 19, 2023 11:55 am.
A Winnipeg city councillor wants all district police stations to have 24/7 service access to the public.
City Councillor Russ Wyatt has brought forward a motion calling for the reopening of the north, east and west district stations that have been closed to the public since the start of the pandemic. Only the downtown headquarters has been accessible to members of the community.
Chair of the Police board, city councillor Markus Chambers says the district stations haven’t been open to the public because the rise in crimes has caused the need for more police patrols around the city.
Chambers says “well, we have to look at the crisis that we’re in now in terms of the rise of crime and violent crime in our city and ensuring that there is that police presence out, you know, that the public can see that police are out there attending to calls.
“You know, to have an officer sitting behind a desk taking a report. The numbers were not as great as you would imagine in terms of people attending the district offices to report crimes.”
He says there are online resources available to report crimes and the police service is looking at ways to expand these tools for the public to access other services.
He added that “there are options that are being explored to increase the use of technology for citizens to report crimes or, you know, if they’re using any of their transactional services, whether it’s fingerprinting, background checks or just simple inquiries.
“Again, not everybody’s technology savvy. So there will be individuals that will be able to help those individuals that are not as technology savvy to still report crimes or use any of those transactional services.”
