Reporting crimes online: new tool to help Red Deer residents

Red Deer RCMP office. (CTV News Edmonton)

EDMONTON — The Alberta RCMP launched a new online crime reporting tool on Monday which will allow residents to report specific crimes online.

The crimes residents will be able to report online are:

“As we continue to respond to and change how we conduct business during COVID-19, online reporting allows citizens to report certain crimes to police while adhering to physical distancing,” said Superintendent Gerald Grobmeier of the Red Deer RCMP.

However, incidents must follow specific guidelines to be eligible to be reported online.

Some of the rules are that the incident must have no witnesses or suspects and there must not be any items involving personal identity, firearms, license plates or decals.

If a crime does not satisfy these guidelines, then it must be reported by calling the Red Deer RCMP. If a crime requires immediate police presence, residents should call 9-1-1.

Once reported, the person who submitted the complaint can expect a follow-up within five business days.

Grobmeier said by allowing another option to report crimes, it will free up resources at the RCMP detachment by allowing call takers and frontline members to focus on high priority crimes.

Grobmeier added that he expects that the number of reported cases will increase because of the accessibility of the online reporting tool.

“I do expect the reported crime to go up, so we will see that in our numbers,” said Grobmeier. “But, that’s not a bad thing. We need the data in order to deploy our resources.”

More information is available at the Red Deer RCMP website.