Fort St. John RCMP officers thank residents for diligent reporting to police

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Local police officers are thanking the people of Fort St. John for consistently reporting incidents to the RCMP.

The city’s detachment issued a press release on Friday, October 17th thanking residents for “all the times [they] saw or heard something unsettling, strange, weird or wrong and [they] reported it to police.”

Local constable Caitlyn Rissanen, a member of the Fort St. John Indigenous Policing Services unit, said she suspects some people aren’t aware of the important role they play in law enforcement.

“We get these calls and sometimes there’s not a lot of information but police attend and it turns into something like, a suspicious occurrence leads to police locating a person who has been assaulted and the offender gets arrested, a person known to police is reported to be breaching and it leads to seizing guns and drugs from a residence,” Rissanen explained.

“I don’t think the public realizes how much they play a role in policing our community and how much of a difference it makes to the safety of everyone.”

The release included another example, saying officers recently received a report from a resident of someone trying to fuel their vehicle who was reportedly “struggling to even stand.”

Officers performed a traffic stop, where police say a suspect performed poorly in a field sobriety test and was taken to the station for further testing.

They were ultimately released with a licence suspension and their vehicle was impounded. Officers say that means a dangerous driver was taken off the road thanks to a resident reporting the incident to the police.

Officers are thanking the people of Fort St. John and encouraging them to continue reporting anything suspicious or unusual they see to the RCMP.

Meanwhile, further details about the alleged impaired driver weren’t released, but officers say they could potentially face a further licence suspension.