AMA and Red Deer RCMP held a media event March 7th to kick off their new partnership in the ‘Lock It or Lose It’ campaign, bringing awareness to the increasing issue of auto theft.
“Red Deer is a beautiful city and I don’t like reading in national papers that it is a dangerous place—for those of us who live, work and play here, I don’t believe that is a reflection on our community,” said Insp. Gerald Grobmeier of the Red Deer RCMP.
“We need to work together to shift those crime stats.”
Red Deer reported more than 1,500 stolen vehicles in 2017, according to Statistics Canada’s Uniform Crime Reporting Survey. Alberta leads the country in vehicle thefts, accounting for more than 29 per cent of all thefts in Canada. That’s almost 23,000 vehicles stolen, more than three times the national average.
“Alberta is leading in all the wrong ways when it comes to this issue,” said Jeff Kasbrick, vice president of government and stakeholder relations at AMA.
Red Deer RCMP have run campaigns before, but Grobmeier said they do not have the same reach and resources for the initiative that AMA does through their customer base.
The ‘Lock It or Lose It’ initiative is being run across the province.
An average of 62 vehicles are stolen every day in Alberta.
Grobmeier said the Red Deer RCMP are actively engaged in numerous crime reduction strategies and are seeing some encouraging results.
The new campaign ‘Lock It or Lose It’ aims to remind Red Deerians to never leave their vehicle running with the keys inside, to always lock the doors and to remove all valuables even if it’s cold outside.
