RCMP closes Lethbridge detachment after 136 years in town – Lethbridge | The Canadian News

After first moving to Lethbridge in 1885, the RCMP no longer has a detachment in the city.

The force originally rented a butcher shop, before moving to barracks in what is now the city’s Civic Common in 1886, and spent the next 135 years in that area.

“It’s historic that the (Royal Canadian) Mounted Police are no longer in this building and on this site,” said Lethbridge Historical Society President Belinda Crowson.

“This area of ​​the city has been known as Barracks Square and now that has changed.”

Everything will now work from the new building in Coaldale, Alta.

Sergeant. Mike Numan said the old facility in Lethbridge, which was built in the 1950s, had become obsolete.

“We didn’t have any kind of cell blocks for prisoners (or) interview rooms that were properly set up,” Numan said. “Together with the city of Coaldale, the province and the county, we decided it would be great to move.”

According to Crowson, Lethbridge was home to the RCMP K Division and the city had a large police presence, with more than 150 officers.

“There was a guard room, there were gardens … men’s quarters, stables,” Crowson said. “This whole area between 9 (Calle) and 11 (Calle) and 4 (Avenida) and 6 (Avenida) was all the (Royal Canadian) Mounted Police.”

And the Mounties continued to have a presence when what was then the city of Lethbridge introduced its own police force in 1902.

“We had a riot in 1907 that had to put down both the (Royal Canadian) Mounted Police and the city police,” Crowson said. “There were many occasions when the two cooperated even though (they) had their own jurisdictions.”

The RCMP will continue to be part of joint units with other law enforcement agencies in the city, but Stafford Drive will no longer be your home.

“You think about the memories in that building or the buildings that were on that site before, and in all the different decades that have passed, it’s difficult, but progression has to happen,” Numan said.

“I know we are confident that we are providing better service to the public at this new location.”