Skip to content

2016 crime stats for Port Hardy: 180 calls for missing persons

However, Staff Sgt. Wes Olsen explains that the majority of those calls were in relation to only four individual youth
36975porthardyrcmplogo
Port Hardy Staff Sgt. Wes Olsen provided town council with a report on crime statistics last week. Read about it in the Mar. 8 edition of the North Island Gazette.

JOHN HARDING

editor@northislandgazette.com

Port Hardy police responded to 180 incidents of missing persons in 2016, 159 of them deemed "high-risk." The raw numbers look high but don't tell the whole story, said RCMP Staff Sgt. Wes Olsen.

The police chief provided Port Hardy council last week with statistics on all calls RCMP responded to in 2016, from assaults to traffic incidents.

"The one (statistic) that's high for me is the missing persons, especially the high-risk missing persons," Olsen said in an interview Thursday. "We take these matters seriously."

To put the numbers in perspective, Olsen said 116 of the high-risk calls were related to only four specific youth, three of which are in the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

READ MORE of this story in Wednesday edition of The North Island Gazette - call today to subscribe (250-949-6225).