Leduc RCMP community town hall held on Feb. 17

Q&A with Kiel Samotej

LEDUC -- The Leduc RCMP held their community town hall on Feb. 17 at Telford House to present the results of their 2026 policing priorities survey and gauge concerns from members of the public in terms of community safety.

The survey results indicated that residents view property crime as the highest area of concern in the municipality, while a majority of respondents also cited the need for stricter traffic enforcement and enhanced police visibility across the City of Leduc.

Kiel Samotej, Officer in Charge of the Leduc RCMP, spoke with 93.1 The One following his presentation about various topics, including this year's survey results, recent break-and-enters in Nisku, Leduc's unhoused population, and more. 

One FM: I'm just looking for a brief overview in terms of what you guys have heard from residents for the 2026 policing priorities survey. What sort of sort of priorities are they looking for, and what do they want to see more in terms of policing?

Insp. Samotej: Tonight, we were fortunate to host our first of three town hall meetings, as an opportunity to give a snapshot and overview of our police service to our residents, and to also engage with our residents to hear their questions and concerns. We were able to gather information through our community priorities survey too. We went through some of the results tonight and saw that our community wants more visibility, more crime reduction strategies, and more engagement in communication from the police. Those were the top three things that really shined through in the survey. We heard some concerns about traffic enforcement too in certain residential areas in regards to some safety concerns. We listened to hear what's going on so we can tailor our police service and develop some police priorities moving forward, and adjust our service delivery for the residents of the City of Leduc, Leduc County, and also Calmar as well.

One FM: I was speaking with Constable McNab recently, and she was indicating that visibility was also a main theme of last year's survey as well. I know you've only been on the job for a year, but in terms of a year-over-year outlook, are you guys hearing the same things in terms of what people are looking for?

Insp. Samotej: We're hearing that people want to see police officers patrolling in the parks, in the schools, on the multiways, on bike patrols, or any other fashion to get out in the community. Visibility is really huge. We're hearing from some of the residents "I don't see you guys" -- well, we are patrolling. If you're not looking out your window 24/7 you can't see us there, but we are patrolling. So, when we're here, we adjust and reset our priorities, and again, like I said, we're going to take some action. 

One FM: In terms of the unhoused population -- that's been an ongoing theme as well. What does enforcement look like in terms of dealing with that sort of issue?

Insp. Samotej: From a police standpoint, enforcement is simply not an option. Like I said tonight, it's a community issue, it's a provincial issue, and a national issue for how to address the unhoused situation. Some of the things when it comes down to enforcement, is we can issue trespassing notices. If there's a criminal element -- like if some of our unhoused for example have stolen property -- then there's a possession of stolen property charge. And, if they have an illegal encampment on someone's property then we look at a mischief over $5,000 if they damage the property, or if they've made it not usable, so there's a wide spectrum in terms of how we enforce it. From a simple warning, to trespassing, and to the extreme side of criminal charges as well too. We have many tools to deal with that as well, but again, we need to understand as a community that these people are down on their luck too. It's not simply just about enforcement. So, sometimes when we go to these encampments it's not just about arresting somebody, it's about getting people the help they need too. What we did during Project Streetlight was we brought some of our FCSS and our navigators with us out to the encampments and said "If you're not willing to seek out services on your own to get help, we're going to bring them to you -- we're going to bridge that gap as a police service". It's not just about enforcement; it's about getting people the help they need too.

One FM: The mental health unit workload that you were describing, the 8.8 per cent, does that tie into what you guys deal with in terms of the unhoused population?

Insp. Samotej: There is a correlation in regards to the unhoused. I'm not saying every unhoused person has that, but there is correlation. But, there's also a correlation with substance abuse, and there are also people that are down on their luck and have had multitudes of bad bounces. There's lots of factors that go towards addressing the unhoused issue. 

One FM: There's been a bit of a theme over the past few weeks, dating back to the start of January, where there's been a lot of break-and-enters at businesses in Nisku. I'm just curious because I've had a lot of members of the community reach out to the station with their stories about it being an issue for quite a long time it seems. Do you guys have any plans in terms of proactive enforcement measures to target the Nisku business district?

Insp. Samotej: I mentioned tonight that we have an analyst, and what she does is she looks for crime trends. She looks for 'hot spots'. This is when we see pockets of break-and-enters in a certain area so we need to adjust our patrols and services to that area to reduce a disruption so people don't target those businesses. But, one thing I do want to point out, is we've seen a lot of news releases in regards to break-and-enters when we're catching the bad guys. So, what that tells me too, is that a lot of the time our members are out patrolling in the area, they get an alarm, and they're there right away and we are catching people. It's not just break-and-enters, we're actually catching the bad guys too. It shows getting out of the office, more visibility, being on the road, and quicker response times to address these calls for service. 

One FM: Finally, you mentioned criminals targeting parked vehicles at hotels starting to become a bit of trend as well, and that you guys might have some sort of measures for that. Can you talk to me about what that's going to look like?

Insp. Samotej: It's an education piece as well too. There's an abundancy of hotels on the northside of town because it’s a feeder for the airport. We've increased patrols in certain areas where they've been targeted. From an education standpoint, if you're going to be leaving your vehicle for a week, take all of your valuables out of the vehicle, utilize steering locking systems. So, it's an education piece that we're providing at the hotels, but we're also providing this to people through an awareness campaign. There are also things we do as a police service as well -- we have a bait vehicle program as well. What that is, is we'll leave a vehicle with the intention of having it get stolen so we can catch them. So, there's lots of measures in play that we're doing to try to capture these car thieves. 

One FM: Any final thoughts?

Insp. Samotej: The one part that was really awesome to see and hear is the amount of community support we have for the RCMP. We presented an opportunity for residents to have a free narrative -- tell us what you think -- and to have 70 plus per cent come back saying 'thank you, you're doing a great job', it was a very warming piece of feedback from our community. Again, like I've always said, we're your police service, we're here for you. It was just really positive feedback, and it was good to hear from our community in that sense. One of the few feel-good moments we have as a police service. 

The final Leduc RCMP town hall will be held in Calmar from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 24, at 4815 49 Street. The full results of the detachment's 2026 policing priorities survey are expected to be released following the event.