The Superintendent of the Kamloops RCMP says while the detachment is essentially fully-staffed, more resources are always welcome.

Syd Lecky was asked if he thinks the detachment has had enough resources to respond to a number of recent high-profile incidents.

“As I said to council yesterday, I will never not look for additional resources, because you can always do more. So it’s always a balancing act, I certainly understand and appreciate the policing costs in any community.”

Lecky says the city’s budget has room for 136 officers, and he says the department has maintained more than 130 staff in most of the past year.

Mounties in Kamloops have worked extensive overtime in recent weeks to deal with three fatal shootings, an armed robbery and kidnapping and other high-profile incidents.

“What I don’t have control over is the scope of the investigations. Some of the recent activity as an example, I can’t predict the volatility, I can’t predict the high-risk nature of certain events, certain calls. It is the nature of that risk; whether I need the emergency response team, you can’t just have them, more often than not, sitting on standby,” Lecky says.

“One event can change that, one significant, major police incident. If I’ve got six people involved in an investigation that the IIO might get involved in, I could be down six people off of one watch overnight. So those are the types of adjustments I’m saying we have to do on an ongoing basis that I can’t, we can’t, predict.”