Over 1,200 signed up for BARCC Connect

As of last week, a total of 1,121 residents throughout the County of Barrhead, the Town of Barrhead and Woodlands County have signed up to receive updates through the Barrhead & Area Regional Crime Coalition (BARCC) alert system.

BARCC Connect, which was launched back in October, is used to send out alerts to residents regarding criminal activity in their area, as well as weather warnings, road closures due to accidents and other situations.

All three municipalities collaborated on the system, which can send out alerts via texts, e-mails and even phone calls to residents’ landlines. The alerts are sent either by RCMP or certain designated users at all three municipalities.

Jennifer Pederson, communications co-ordinator at the County of Barrhead, said the majority of registrants — a total of 1,072 — are signed up to receive alerts about criminal activity.

Another 591 users are registered to receive notices about events within the town and county, such as a recent notice sent out about Christmas tree pick-up.

A total of 848 residents from the County of Barrhead are registered for BARCC Connect, along with 698 registrants from the Town of Barhead. And finally, there are 413 registrants from Woodlands County.

“We were really excited to see the initial registrations happen when the program launched in October. (The numbers) kind of climbed really quickly; we were seeing about three to five new registrants a day,” Pederson said.

What really caused a major boost in registrations was an incident on Dec. 17, when the system assisted RCMP in tracking down a man who attempted to steal multiple vehicles in Barrhead.

“To be honest with you, that incident itself did show the effectiveness of the system,” said Pederson.

On the morning of Dec. 17, RCMP began receiving reports of a male suspect breaking car windows in town. As the day wore on, the individual made numerous attempts to steal vehicles and at one point even tried to force his way into a home to look for keys to a vehicle.

However, police received a number of tips regarding the male’s location after sending out alerts through BARCC Connect. This led RCMP to spotting the suspect on several occasions, although he was always able to evade capture.

Eventually, the suspect stole a van that had been left running and unattended. But at 6:45 p.m., RCMP were notified by a resident in the Neerlandia area that the van was stuck in a farm yard, and the suspect had approached the resident for help.

“When he was ultimately caught, it was on the property of someone who had been getting the notifications,” Pederson said. “He’s the one who called the police because he knew this was the guy they were looking for.”

Police attended the scene, and although the suspect tried to flee on foot, they were able to catch him near a chicken barn where the resident had spotted him. He unsuccessfully tried to resist arrest and received superficial injuries, but was finally placed under arrest.

Pederson said many people were sharing posts on Facebook about the case and it generated a lot of interest in the BARCC Connect system. People ended up sharing the online registration pages with others.

“We saw over 100 registrants …  over a 24-hour period, starting from the point when the gentleman was running around and notifications went out the next day,” she said.

When BARCC Connect was initially launched, the three municipalities held prize giveaways to early registrants to encourage participation.

When asked if the municipalities were considering another giveaway to increase participation, Pederson said they’re focusing on the content of the alerts as a way to drive up registrations.

She said they learn from the data they collect through registrations and the comments that people give us about what they like to see in the notifications that are going out.

“What we’re looking at right now is making sure … that the system is functioning the way that we want it to, with the content that we want in there,” she said.

Otherwise, Pederson said BARCC Connect is a great tool for receiving accurate information about what’s going on in the area.

“When it’s coming directly from the RCMP, or directly from the municipalities, you know it’s accurate information.”

Residents can physically register for alerts at either of the three municipal offices or the Barrhead RCMP station. Otherwise, they can sign up online at each municipality’s website.