The City of Trail’s new Citizens on Patrol (COP) program is expected to start on June 15.
That from RCMP Sergeant Mike Wicentowich.
There’s been about 10 volunteers interested so far, some involved with the former program, who will undertake their training on June 7.
“It’s going to be two hours of training. They’re given very specific rules, basically they’re just eyes and ears. They won’t actually interact with the public in a sense… they won’t be conducting enforcement or chasing people down, they’ll just be reporting to us when they come across something, like a crime or suspicious people or occurrences.”
Although there has been a program in the past, this year it’s been revamped with funding approved by city council to hire a coordinator and have a COP vehicle.
“It’ll run pretty much essentially as it ran before, just with more visibility and more… targeting areas through intelligence rather than just random patrols,” explained Sergeant Wicentowich.
RCMP will create a map of the Trail area locating the problem areas, residences or people and volunteers will be booked in pairs for four hour shifts.
The hope is to have upwards of about 60 volunteers eventually, but Sergeant Wicentowich feels it may just be a slow start. People still have a lot of questions, he added, and once those are answered and the program gets underway more may join.