A long-time 911 operator in the Yukon who has been around long enough to detect trends feels like his job has been generally ramping up.
Matt Shepalo has been on the job at the Yukon RCMP’s Operational Communications Centre for 16 years taking emergency, non-emergency and complaint calls and providing law enforcement support with criminal history checks and driver’s licence status updates.
“In general, it feels like we’re definitely getting busier,” Shepalo told the News by phone on April 16.
“Winter is a lot less busy than the summertime.”
Historical data provided by Yukon RCMP spokesperson Calista MacLeod supports Shepalo’s observations.
The Yukon RCMP’s Operational Communications Centre fielded more than 30,000 911 calls in 2024, per Shepalo. Data from MacLeod indicates the centre took in 18,486 calls territory-wide in 2017; 24,464 calls in 2018; 28,473 calls in 2019 and 27,799 in 2020.
Anecdotally, Shepalo couldn’t pin down increases or decreases in any particular type of calls.
He offered some reasons about the increase in requests for service: the population has increased over time and people may be more inclined to call police because they are “more on edge” because of previous incidents, recent downtown disturbances or awareness and attention to police matters.
Some of the more troubling calls for him are those involving children.
But the most challenging requests for him to assist involve people who can’t effectively communicate their concerns and details like whereabouts.
“A challenging phone call, like an actual phone call, is when people, for whatever reason, can't communicate,” Shepalo said.
“Whether they've had too much to drink, or whatever the issue is, whether they're just, you know, they're having difficulties communicating, or they're just so upset, whether because they're in a difficult situation, or just very angry and frustrated, or they don't like the police, there's any number of factors.”
When a call comes into the centre, most of the time it’s fairly clear whether police will be dispatched, or the call will be transferred to the Whitehorse fire department, emergency medical services or Delta One, which deals with conservation and volunteer firefighter dispatching.
The RCMP’s Whitehorse detachment is the only police detachment in the territory that operates 24/7.
Outside of the Yukon capital, Shepalo explained that officers are typically on call during the wee hours. 911 operators will usually notify RCMP members in communities about calls as they come in, unless it can clearly wait until the morning, such as a bicycle theft that occurred over the winter.
Shepalo described himself as resilient in terms of his ability to cope with and recover from difficult requests for service. He said the centre offers biannual psychological debriefs as well as critical incident debriefs following more intense situations and an employee assistance program for support.
“We do kind of feel like sometimes kind of de facto social workers,” Shepalo said.
“Sometimes a little bit of support goes a long way with just being able to kind of calm somebody and then allow them to effectively, or more effectively, communicate. So, that's part of it, too. But it's such a varied job. It's difficult to kind of summarize.”
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com
