Police responded to 75 COVID calls in March, issued eight tickets

Regina Police Service Chief Evan Bray told the board of police commissioners that intention matters when officers decide whether or not to issue COVID-19 tickets.

As an example, Bray said police might find children at a playground in excess of what’s allowed under public health orders.

“We’re not doing enforcement in those cases,” Bray said.

“We actually have had some good examples where we’ve had conversations with parents who were nearby, just helping them understand what that looks like and how can we try and maintain social distance and the wearing of masks and those types of things.”

According to a report for Tuesday’s board meeting, police responded to 75 COVID calls in March. That was down from 108 in February and 139 in January.

Last month, police issued eight tickets, the same number as February and down from 11 in January.

The chief was asked which actions merit a ticket and those that do not and Bray said officers use good discretion when given the option to enforce.

“We don’t issue a ticket to every noisy party that we go to, outside of COVID,” he said.

However, Bray said it’s a different situation when people are purposefully flouting the rules. Bray described what that looks like.

“Where it’s organized (and) it’s been on Facebook, ‘We want people to come down here,’ ” he said. “In those cases, that is to me, and to our organization, a defiance of the order.”