LCBO shoplifting spearheads increased calls for Ottawa police responses

In the fourth quarter of 2023, each Ottawa police officer dealt with an average of eight Criminal Code offences, a 14-per-cent increase from the five-year average.

Published Feb 23, 2024 • Last updated 12 hours ago • 2 minute read

The 2023 crime statistics report was prepared by the Ottawa Police Service for the Monday meeting of the Ottawa Police Services Board. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

The Ottawa Police Service continued to face a mounting number of calls for service in 2023, paced by a huge increase in shoplifting calls at LCBO outlets.

Shoplifting accounted for more than 37 per cent of all reports received online, according to an OPS report prepared for Monday’s meeting of the Ottawa Police Services Board.

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That increase was driven “was driven in part by LCBO, which had previously limited online reports to 25 per day for all their locations, but reported more than 1,500 shoplifting incidents in 2023 Q4 compared to more than 720 incidents in 2022 Q4.”

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Online reporting in general was also higher in the fourth quarter, comprising October through December, with 7,333 online reports reporting a 33-per-cent increase from the five-year fourth-quarter average of 5,524.

There were more than 427,000 total calls for service in 2023, the highest number in 10 years. That included 83,700 through the OPS computer-aided dispatch system.

The total was 15 per cent higher than the five-year average of 371,253 calls for service, and up from the 370,315 calls in 2022.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, police received close to 91,000 calls for service, including 83,700 through the computer-aided dispatch system.

The report noted approximately 900 “P1” calls in the fourth quarter — 39 per cent higher than the five-year average of 64 — for “events involving actual or imminent danger of bodily injury or death, often with the known presence of weapons.”

Seventy-seven per cent of P1 calls were to assist other emergency services, including paramedics.

P1 calls declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the “tiered response agreement” between emergency services was suspended to limit transmission of the virus.

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“Since the start of 2023, the TRA has been reactivated, which explains the rise in officer dispatch numbers,” the report noted.

Ottawa police aim to respond to P1 calls for service within 15 minutes 95 per cent of the time. Once a call is dispatched, the priority level of that call does not change in the computer-aided dispatch system.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, each Ottawa police officer dealt with an average of eight Criminal Code offences, a 10-per-cent increase from the same period in 2022 and a 14-per-cent increase from the five-year average.

The report said the number of offences handled by police officers had steadily risen since the end of the pandemic. This trend has outpaced the growth in sworn officer personnel numbers, resulting in more crimes per member.

Nevertheless, the report said OPS still met its target of responding to (Priority 1 calls) within 15 minutes 95 per cent of the time.

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