OPP celebrates ‘Police Week’

“Working together as a community” is the theme for National Police Week, which the district OPP will be celebrating May 10-16.
Cst. Mark Boileau, community service officer with the Fort Frances OPP, said police are hoping the event will create stronger ties between the OPP and community.
“What we want to do is have some open houses at each of the detachments during the week,” he noted. “We’ll also have representatives from the community policing community if [people] want to know what the committee is about and would like to join.
“The move is to increase awareness of our services and duties,” he added. “That type of thing.”
The first open house will be held at the Fort Frances detachment on Monday, May 11. It then will move to Emo on May 12, Rainy River on May 13, and Atikokan on May 14.
All the open houses will be held from 6-8:30 p.m.
“Since the amalgamating, people may not know where the detachment is and what has changed here,” Cst. Boileau said, noting several people he’s talked with were surprised the OPP station in Fort Frances is in the same place as the former town police.
“People can have tours of the office, or if they have questions about dispatching and other questions, there’ll be people there to answer them,” he added.
The CAPPS computer system also will be up and running, allowing residents to pull up information on any of the OPP detachments in the province.
Cst. Boileau said the OPP has played a part in National Police Week in the past although with a different theme each year. But the goal of the event has remained the same–to promote better ties between the police and community they serve.
“We’re part of the community just as much as you are,” Cst. Boileau said. “We live here and we have to police the community.”