Winnipeggers share their views on new police chief's priorities through poll
CBC
Winnipeg's chief of police is set to retire from the force, and a new poll shows some Winnipeggers want the incoming top cop to focus their efforts on downtown safety and petty crime.
Safety and theft is a growing concern for Kishan Zalawadia, owner of Family Foods Downtown. He said shoplifting is a daily occurrence.
"It's never the same for everyday, but if you pick an average it could be around like $50 to $100 dollars [per day]."
A CBC Manitoba/Probe poll surveyed 480 Winnipeggers from the research firm's panel. It found many of those residents want the new chief to prioritize downtown safety, and reduce petty crime and property crime.
More than 1 in 4 Winnipeggers surveyed (27 per cent) say improving downtown safety should be the top priority for the new chief, and 70 per cent rank downtown safety as one of their top three priorities.
Zalawadia has only owned Family Foods for a couple months, but said his tenured staff believe shoplifting is getting worse. Zalawadia hasn't called the police yet, but he's not sure if it's worth it.
"I don't want to call the cops for $5, $10, but those $5, $10 are being stolen every hour, so I don't know what I shall call them for? Shall I call them for $50, or shall I call them for $10 every hour?"
Zalawadia wants to see more police patrols in the downtown area.
Chief Danny Smyth declined to comment and Winnipeg Police said it's waiting for the announcement of a new chief before commenting further.
The Probe Research poll revealed 60 per cent of Winnipeggers surveyed feel petty and property crime is a top three priority for WPS Chief Danny Smyth's successor, and 24 per cent ranked this as their main concern; racialized Winnipeggers and older Winnipeggers who responded placed a higher priority on this.
Since the results of the online survey did not come from a random probability-based sample, a margin of error cannot be calculated. For comparison purposes, a similar probabilistic survey would have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.47 percentage points 19 times out 20, according to the survey. The margin of error would be higher within each of the survey's population sub-groups.
Downtown residents aren't the only ones saying there's a rise in theft and petty crime. In the Fort Richmond area, Mohamed Goulaid has seen multiple car break-ins and thefts near his home. Recently he woke up in the middle of the night and caught someone breaking into multiple cars outside his window.
"At that time I was like hey, let me try to pull out my phone, catch him in the act, see what he's going to do," said Goulaid.
"I said 'hey what's going on bro?' He kind of looked at me, and we kind of made that eye contact, and he knew I caught him doing what he was doing."
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