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Surrey Police Service responds to 18,000 calls in first 60 days

Surrey Police Service issues report on the first two months of its work as police of jurisdiction
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Surrey Police Service has issued a report after its first 60 days as police of jurisdiction.

Surrey Police Service has issued a report after the first 60 days since becoming the police of jurisdiction for the city.

Since Nov. 29, 2024, SPS frontline officers responded to more than 18,000 calls for service in the Whalley/City Centre and Newton policing districts, which represents 60 per cent of the total calls for service in the City of Surrey, a release noted.

As the policing transition advances, SPS continues to work collaboratively with the RCMP Surrey Provincial Operations Support Unit (SPOSU), which is temporarily managing policing operations in Guildford, Cloverdale, and South Surrey districts of the city. SPS has also assumed citywide responsibility for 9-1-1 and non-emergency call response and dispatch, police information checks, and other public front counter services, it continued.

SPS has grown its team "significantly" over the past two months, adding 39 sworn police officers and 391 civilian employees, most of whom transferred to SPS from the City of Surrey as part of the policing transition, the release said. SPS now has almost 950 staff, with plans to hire more than 100 more sworn and civilian staff this year, as it continue to ramp up to full strength over the next two to three years.

“I am very proud of the work that the Surrey Police Service team of civilian staff and police officers has done over the past two months since we become the police of jurisdiction,” said SPS Chief Const. Norm Lipinski.

“In the months ahead, we plan to continue to grow our team, take on more operational policing responsibilities in the city, and launch additional community focused initiatives and collaboration.”

From Nov. 29, 2024 to Jan. 29, 2025, SPS responded to 18,017 calls for service in the Whalley/City Centre and Newton policing districts.

In the same timeframe and same districts in previous years, Surrey RCMP responded to 17,701 calls in 2023-24, 19,658 in 2022-2023, and 18,481 calls in 2021-2022, SPS senior media relations officer Staff Sgt. Lindsey Houghton said in an email.

Houghton could not provide details such as how many calls SPS officers attended in person compared to RCMP officers, or the kinds of calls that were investigated and/or closed without police attending in person, compared to previous years, saying it would not be feasible to manually review thousands of calls for such information.

"The number indicates all calls or call numbers that have been generated. That can be from many ways, on view observance by an officer generating a call, a 911 call, a non-emergency call, etc. It’s all-encompassing," he said.

"'Responding to' can mean many things…from an officer administratively clearing a low-priority call that comes in while in the Command Centre to a shooting that results in multiple teams being called in and resulting in a multi-month investigation."

The SPS release noted that one of the first operational changes it made was to initiate a Community Safety Operations Centre (CSOC), which provides live time, 24/7 supervision and monitoring of all incidents taking place in the city.

"The CSOC allows public safety information to be immediately shared with policing personnel as well as with the public with SPS’s 24/7 on-call model for media relations. Resources and incident responses are also coordinated through the CSOC for SPS and our policing partners," the release said, adding the SPS has also launched new district inspector positions — officers who work with local residents, businesses and organizations — as part of its community-focused policing model.

An Impaired Driving Unit is being launched by the SPS Road Safety Section to help keep dangerous drivers off the roads, while SPS body-worn cameras and drones are moving into the testing phase, the release added, as well as biometric sensors in detention to improve safety of those taken into custody.

 



Tricia Weel

About the Author: Tricia Weel

I’m a lifelong writer and storyteller, and have worked at community newspapers and magazines throughout the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
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