Inspector Brent Secondiak

By Charles Lefebvre

Medicine Hat Police concerned about recent high risk incidents

Mar 5, 2020 | 3:37 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — The Medicine Hat Police Service say they’re concerned after responding to several mental health calls and high risk incidents in recent weeks.

In the past two weeks, police have responded to two calls involving males in distress armed with weapons. The first call occurred at a home on Ross Haven Avenue, while the second involved a man crashing his truck into a business on Maple Avenue.

In both cases, the men involved were taken into custody under the Mental Health Act.

“It’s concerning for us,” said Inspector Brent Secondiak. “There’s been a lot of high risk calls, and there has been weapons involved. When a weapon is involved we’re really concerned about safety of the individual, but also the safety of the officers and the public.”

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According to the Medicine Hat Police Service’s annual report, officers responded to 1,126 mental health calls in 2019, down from 2018, where 1,279 calls were placed. Of those calls, 473 people were arrested under the Mental Health Act.

Secondiak says they respond to calls where people are in crisis due to a mental health event, and have also responded to calls where an individual was acting erratically due to drugs.

Secondiak says the police service has increased training to respond to mental health calls, starting with cadets.

“They get training on how to respond to mental health calls, our officers get trained on how to de-escalate situations, so a combination of all the training they have and experience hopefully will subdue most situations,” he said.