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Police in Saskatoon address some of the city’s approximately 6,400 outstanding Criminal Code warrants with a new team.
The Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) is launching a new Warrant Enforcement Unit as a one-year pilot project. The five-officer team will focus on arresting people who have failed to appear in court or have active criminal charges.
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According to the police force, 5,000 of the roughly 6,400 outstanding warrants in Saskatoon have been issued since January of 2023.
“The creation of this unit reflects our commitment to community safety and effective law enforcement,” inspector Tony Landry said in a statement.
“A dedicated team focused on warrant enforcement will allow us to prioritize arresting wanted individuals who pose the greatest risk to public safety while also alleviating pressures faced by frontline patrol officers.”
The team will work in collaboration with other police units to ensure it works as efficiently and effectively as possible, the police service noted.
Speaking on The Evan Bray Show on Tuesday, Saskatoon police chief Cam McBride said the team was launched as a direct result of the recommendations made by the coroner’s jury after the inquest into a mass murder on the James Smith Cree Nation in 2022. The perpetrator of those attacks, Myles Sanderson, was wanted by police when he killed 11 people and injured 17 others.
McBride said the launch of the warrant unit is “about bringing accountability and ensuring individuals who have been charged with an offence get their day in court, and that we bring them to justice as soon as we can.”
He said enforcing warrants is particularly important when it comes to violent offenders.
“Right now our teams are establishing their protocols, prioritizing their work, and very shortly they will be in full swing, arresting individuals who are wanted in our community,” McBride said.
Unit will not cause staffing issues says SPS
The new unit will redeploy officers from its patrol bureau according to Tony Landry, Inspector in charge of the Patrol Support Division with the SPS.
“They’re going to be in uniform and they will be present and visible on the streets,” he said.
“They will be available to support our frontline officers and then once the situation (is controlled) the officers from the Warrant Enforcement Unit will return to their regular duties.”
Landry said this would not cause staffing issues for the patrol bureau.
“We’ve done a recent hire here of 17 officers down at the Saskatchewan Police College. They’re set to come back here in the next month or so,” he said.
With a “backlog” of individuals who are “difficult to locate and arrest,” Landry said this unit was needed.
“It’s become very apparent that we needed to create this warrant enforcement unit to combat the growing number of outstanding warrants to ensure that we had a safe community by locating and arresting those individuals,” he said.
The unit will be made up of one sergeant and four constables. The officers will work with an analyst to compile the list of wanted individuals based on the severity of crimes.
“The severity will range from the most severe being a homicide investigation all the way down to a willful damage or a theft under $5,000,” he said.
Landry encourages the public to contact police or Crime Stoppers with any information about individuals with warrants, saying it takes the whole community to ensure everyone is safe.
— with files from 650 CKOM’s Mia Holowaychuk
