{"id":9096,"date":"2025-08-21T16:37:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T19:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=9096"},"modified":"2025-08-21T16:37:35","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T19:37:35","slug":"region-of-queens-councillors-want-better-traffic-drug-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/08\/21\/region-of-queens-councillors-want-better-traffic-drug-enforcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Region of Queens councillors want better traffic, drug enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9098\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9098\" class=\"size-large wp-image-9098\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0928-1024x792.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"792\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0928-1024x792.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0928-768x594.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0928-1536x1188.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0928-2048x1585.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9098\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Region of Queens councillors want more traffic enforcement in places like Liverpool and Summerville. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Region of Queens councillors want the RCMP to crack down on traffic violations and drug crime and they say they\u2019re willing to put up the money to hire extra officers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Staff Sgt. Dan Archibald is the commander of the Queens District RCMP detachment. He recently provided a quarterly police report to council.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that having a dedicated street crime enforcement team of two officers to investigate drug complaints would free up other officers to address longstanding irritants like traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI feel that it&#8217;s too easy for individuals to sell illicit drugs from their residences with the lack of enforcement or capability in doing enforcement on our behalf. A designated street crime team or general investigations team would not only give us the resource power to do it, but it would come with the knowledge and experience that would be required to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cTo me, it would make (Queens County) that much better of a place to live to be able to enforce those on a routine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was one charge under the controlled drugs and substances act from April to June this year. Last year, there were four in the same period.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/queensquarterlypolicereportjuly25.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">READ THE QUEENS QUARTERLY POLICE REPORT HERE<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The detachment is currently staffed with 10 constables, which includes one community policing officer. Two corporals act as shift supervisors and operations manager, in addition to Archibald himself. There are also two civilian employees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Region of Queens spends just under $3 million a year on policing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">District 4 Coun. Vicki Amirault said council decided more than 10 years ago to pull funding for an extra officer. And she said another officer left the area soon after that and wasn\u2019t replaced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI&#8217;ve been getting a lot of complaints lately of drugs, needles, within Pine Grove Park,&#8221; she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;I think council has to tackle that right away. \u2029&#8230; \u2029I think now we do have the need to support that extra officer without a doubt, with what&#8217;s going on now in today&#8217;s world. And I really hope that council will support this initiative. <\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Overall, Archibald said there was no big spike in crime in Queens County over the same period last year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But calls for assaults, extortion, harassment or threats were up to 48 from 32. There 42 calls related to intimate partner violence. Twelve people, nine male and three female, were charged in those incidents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">RCMP also dealt with 388 traffic violations, up from 250 the year before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Archibald said the increase in traffic-related charges is the result of targeted enforcement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe&#8217;ve been doing some proactive traffic enforcement throughout Queens County,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;\u2029For the two months of that first quarter, we&#8217;ve focused on North Queens, Caledonia area, and rural roads off of Caledonia, which has been great. And what that looks like is a day designated with some extra members coming in, doing strictly traffic enforcement, road safety things. People are happy to see us in places where they haven&#8217;t seen us previously. We&#8217;re looking at keeping that up every month at the very least focusing one day in various areas throughout the community.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some councillors want more of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coun. Courtney Wentzell said he regularly gets complaints from residents in his downtown Liverpool district that they never see police.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe lack of police presence in this community, I find quite appalling. \u2029I never see a cop. Privateer Days, I think I&#8217;ve seen five of them in the tent, but I don&#8217;t see them. \u2029And I live on the west side of Main Street, which is a drag strip. They start around around the fire hall or Cameron&#8217;s Corner, and it is a drag strip, and you can talk to anybody on that street, and they&#8217;ll tell you. And we never see a cop. \u2029We never see a radar set up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Archibald said that covering a large area like Queens County can be challenging.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cPolicing has changed over the last however many years, (and) the demand for police presence has grown. \u2029Every time someone calls the police, whether it&#8217;s North Queens, West Queens, East Queens, wherever it is, if we have two members on during a day shift or two on night shift, a call in North Queens drags two members, whether it&#8217;s mental health, whether it&#8217;s a mischief, whether it&#8217;s a domestic, whether it&#8217;s a traffic complaint, that drags the only police officers out of Liverpool to a different area which takes them away from town for two hours. \u2029So it&#8217;s harder to designate police to the town of Liverpool when there&#8217;s other needs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Archibald said they\u2019re trying to address those kinds of concerns with their monthly traffic initiative. And he said installing more digital speed signs in some areas would also help, especially during tourist season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Archibald told councillors that residents should report traffic violations to the detachment as soon as they see them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If they call us in real time, and we&#8217;ve got some new recruits here &#8230; who are gung ho on getting out there and if someone gives information as to who these people are, what they&#8217;re driving, like, they are out of the office to go look for them. So now&#8217;s a good time to report those people as well. You don&#8217;t always get that in certain detachments, but we have some young folks who who are enjoying traffic enforcement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Email: <a href=\"mailto:rickconradqccr@gmail.com\">rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-9096-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/queensrcmpreporttocouncilaug2125.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/queensrcmpreporttocouncilaug2125.mp3\">https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/queensrcmpreporttocouncilaug2125.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Region of Queens councillors want the RCMP to crack down on traffic violations and drug crime and they say they\u2019re willing to put up the money to hire extra officers. Staff Sgt. Dan Archibald is the commander of the Queens District RCMP detachment. He recently provided a quarterly police report to council.\u00a0 He said that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[358,2595,1682,3352,2415,39,3355,3354,49,1583,94,24,3353,3351,96],"class_list":["post-9096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-caledonia","tag-courtney-wentzell","tag-crime","tag-drug-crime","tag-drugs","tag-liverpool","tag-main-street-traffic","tag-pine-grove-park","tag-queens-county","tag-queens-district-rcmp","tag-rcmp","tag-region-of-queens","tag-staff-sgt-dan-archibald","tag-traffic-violations","tag-vicki-amirault"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9100,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9096\/revisions\/9100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}