Police refuse to say how many outstanding warrants in Calgary without big dollars

The Calgary Police Service (CPS) refuses to disclose to the Western Standard how many outstanding warrants it has for criminals and alleged criminals in the city, unless the publication pays them $2,000. It claims that it will cost that much to process the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) request.After a nearly one-year delay in response to a request for information on the “number of outstanding warrants” the police service had on record over a 10-year period, “broken down by warrants per individual and type of warrant,” the CPS sent a steep bill and no information.“Fees over and above the initial fee paid at the time you made the request are assessed as follows,” wrote CPS in an email.“For producing a record from an electronic record: Computer processing and related charges: 35 * $60/hour = $2,100.00.”“Time to prepare and handle for disclosure: 1 * $27.00/hour = $27.00.”“Total amount of the fee estimate: $2,127.00.”CPS required a cheque for half the amount, $1,063.50, submitted within 20 days for the process to continue..WATCH: The Western Standard gets its man.Franco Terrazzano, federal director of The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, told the Western Standard both the long delay and the proposed cost for the information are “ridiculous.” “To delay it for that long and then to put a $2,000 fee on documents that belong to taxpayers is ridiculous,” said Terrazzano. “Why are we paying for our own documents?” he added. “At minimum, any government entity has a duty to help and to try to get the records to the person at a very reasonable and fast time and for very minimal, if not no, cost.”“It's ridiculous. The delay and the massive fee, it's ridiculous.”“That is taxpayers’ documents. Why are they delaying, and why would it cost so much?”.TERRAZZANO: Canada’s department of government efficiency — a blueprint.The request was submitted after Western Standard Publisher Derek Fildebrandt’s motorcycle was intentionally damaged by a homeless addict in September 2023 from his parking spot in the alley behind the office building.Fildebrandt tracked the criminal down on his motorcycle, and a former reporter assisted in following him on foot as they called CPS to make an arrest.“The pair called 9-1-1 and waited patiently for police to arrive to no avail. They were either all taken with other emergencies or complacent,” the Western Standard reported at the time.Police eventually made the arrest, charged the criminal, and released him with a promise to appear in court. The arresting officer told Fildebrandt that the criminal would likely be back on the streets within the hour and would unlikely ‘pay a dime’ in restitution.This proved correct when the criminal never appeared in court, and police informed Fildebrandt that they would not actively execute a warrant for his arrest. It was at this time that the Western Standard began an investigation into how many outstanding warrants the CPS had. .FILDEBRANDT: Crackhoppers... two addicts in less than an hour tried to get me to run them over... Why? .According to Fildebrandt, the bike thief was arrested and charged, and then he was released back onto the streets.“He never showed up for his court date, and CPS informed me that they would do nothing to bring him in. There would be no point,” wrote Fildebrandt in an op-ed published a year later.“The police officer levelled with me and told me the obvious: he would pay no damages for intentionally causing thousands of dollars in damage to my property. You can't get blood from a stone.”

Police refuse to say how many outstanding warrants in Calgary without big dollars

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