The Sarnia Police Service has had a busy start to 2024 with a spike in high-risk violent crimes.
During Thursday's police board meeting, Sarnia Police Chief Derek Davis said the Emergency Response Team has been called out to 16 incidents since January 1.
He said while it is early in the year, members have said it's been exceptionally busy.
Davis told SarniaNewsToday.ca this is definitely a concern.
"It consumes a lot of resources, our people have heavy workloads," said Davis. "If it increases for a long period of time it becomes increasingly concerning. The number of 9-1-1 calls is, I think, fairly reflective of some of the concerns from folks who are encountering some of these issues."
Davis added police do expect to have busy periods but if it is extended it could create other problems.
He explained that while the Emergency Response Team are happy to deploy their special skills, it can be burdensome in other areas of the service.
"Our Emergency Response Team is not full time, they all have other roles and responsibilities, so when demands increase for their emergency response involvement it comes at the expense of their other responsibilities within the organization," Davis said.
The Sarnia Police Service is also dealing with a lot of repeat offenders, although some are first-time offenders.
"Recidivism is another layer of the onion of things that we need to deal with as a police service, but it is a large component," he said.
Davis added that while the amount of these violent calls are concerning the police service does not control the calls for service.
Meanwhile, it was highlighted during a report by Inspector Leo Murphy that there was an increase in weapons calls.
From October 2022 to February 2023 there were 36 weapon calls compared to 48 from October 2023 to February 2024.
Davis said the hope is for the number of calls to go down.
"As emergencies come in it's our job to respond and we'll continue to do that, we just hope to be able to do that at a sustainable pace," he said.