Edmonton’s Downtown Business Association announces night patrol

The goal is to make people feel safer downtown at night: Edmonton’s Downtown Business Association (DBA) announcing the ‘night patrol’ Thursday.

The one year pilot project is already six months in. It has security vehicles patrol downtown from 12:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., seven days a week.

The DBA’s executive director says they’ve already seen results.

“They’ve seen car break ins in progress, attempted break ins to properties, they’ve put out literal fires in back allies…so it’s really, as much as we can with only two vehicles on the road, to try have eyes and ears there to intervene and disrupt and prevent crime and disorder,” said Puneeta McBryan, executive director of the Downtown Business Association.

The program is funded by the city of Edmonton. McBryan says the goal of night patrol is to help businesses downtown feel safer overnight.

“There’s so many businesses dealing with so many safety and security concerns overnight. Vandalism, broken windows, break-ins, and even just night time staff. The night time economy is an important part of downtown, and there’s staff leaving their shift at midnight, 1 a.m., 1 a.m., and they need to feel safe going to their car as well.”

When selecting partners to work with, the DBA says it was important to them to find an indigenous-owned security business. Backwoods security services believes they are uniquely equipped to service Edmonton’s inner city.

“We have a familiarity with what goes on downtown, we’ve worked with a lot of the homeless shelters during COVID, for example. Because there’s a large population of Indigenous peoples that are unfortunately homeless, they can identify with us a little bit better,” said Jean-Marc Figeat, Business Development Manager at Backwoods Security Services.

Each of the two night patrol vehicles are manned by a security guard from backwoods security, and a peer support worker from Hiregood – a social enterprise arm of Boyle Street Community Services. The teams hope to de-escalate situations and provide resources before they become dangerous or criminal.

“We’re not hands-on. We observe and report. So if anything elevates to the certain degree that we fear for the safety of our staff or individuals on the street, we’ll call EPS and have them deal with it. But we’ll stay in place until they arrive, and make sure that these people are either looked after or watched,” said Figeat.