Police Chief Troy Cooper says violent crimes in Saskatoon has remained around the same from last year, while property crime has decreased.

This from his report to the board of police commissioners this week.

Cooper says property crime year to date decreased around 14% from January on. During the period of COVID-19, starting in March until now, these numbers have dropped 28%. He says this includes things like break and enters and thefts.

Cooper says while fraud based crime is lower, recently fraud specific to COVID-19, namely people using CERB funding or CRA in a fraudulent way, has caused Saskatoon Police to advise the community about these crimes.

Cooper says drug use has been a concern throughout the pandemic, with drug enforcement increasing 18% year over year. He says drug overdose calls increased in July to 52 after seeing 20-30 a month on average. 10 of those calls Cooper says, officers were able to administer naloxone.

Chief Cooper says while calls for service are about the same as last year, more 9-1-1 calls have occurred. Meaning the types of calls have changed, with more urgent calls for things like domestic violence increasing from this time last year.