Reports of Suspicious Vehicles and People In Town
Written by Jeremy Zafran on 27 July 2021
The Kahnawake Peacekeepers say they have received a large influx of calls in recent weeks from community members reporting on suspicious vehicles and people in town. Some Kahnawa’kehró:non have even begun their own patrols. Kyle Zachary is the Public Relations officer with the Peacekeepers:
“I spoke at the men’s meeting last week and they spoke about community watch, like a neighbourhood watch type of thing and the Peacekeepers were 100% in favour of that. Yes, vigilance is good, but we want to avoid vigilantism. You’re vigilant if you’re observing something, someone that you think is suspicious then you can keep observing them you know, from a distance, from a safe distance. What we don’t want is people confronting people and chasing people because that’s when people can get hurt.”
Zachary wants to alleviate people’s fears:
“Most of the times they are lost, there was construction on the bridge that created all kind of detours. Sometimes they are looking for stores in the community, sometimes they’re delivery people you know, not everybody that’s a non-local is suspicious, that’s another thing we’re trying to stress. Vigilance is important, you’re diverting police resources if your calling us for a lost pizza delivery driver.”
