The Inspector’s Corner

April 16, 2026 - Mission, British Columbia
From: Mission RCMP

Content

April 2026

Hi, I’m Inspector Ted Lewko, the Officer in Charge for the Mission RCMP detachment.  Welcome to the April edition of The Inspector’s Corner.  I regularly provide updates to Mayor and Council and meet with people at various community events, but this is an opportunity for me to connect with everyone, to help you to learn more about how your local detachment is serving the community. 

For this month, I wanted to shine the spotlight on our community.  As police officers, we regularly see various negative aspects of our community, but we also get to see a lot of positive aspects of it – many of which go unrecognized.  This could be in the form of people who call 911 when they see someone who needs help, people who stop at a collision scene and perform first aid until paramedics arrive, or even just neighbours who drop by to check on an elderly resident that needs the occasional helping hand. 

Last month, the Chartwell Carrington House retirement residence caught fire, requiring the immediate evacuation of all residents.  Amazingly, everyone got out of the building, and no one suffered any life-threatening injuries, despite there being over 140 residents spread across multiple floors – many with reduced mobility.  I am so appreciative of the efforts of members of the Mission Fire Rescue Service and our Mission RCMP officers who rushed in and worked quickly to help everyone get to safety.  But even more than that, I am so very proud of – and touched by – the community’s response. 

Firefighters, paramedics, police officers, and others, have jobs that involve going into difficult situations to help others.  The public expects us to be there to help…but the same cannot be said for all of the neighbours and others from the community who offered their help during the fire at Carrington House.  They didn’t sign up for that role, and there was no expectation that they would offer their help – and yet they did, and they did it out of the goodness of their hearts.  And that goodness that exists in our community does not get nearly the recognition it deserves. 

For every crime that is committed in our community, there are a wealth of other people who help to better our community: people who make a point of being good, of trying hard regardless of their circumstances, of looking out for their neighbours, and of trying to make our community a better place.  And yes, some of those people might get a speeding ticket from time-to-time, and some of them might light off fireworks on Halloween – even though they know they’re illegal – but ultimately they are also the same people who will keep an eye on their neighbour’s house when their neighbours are away for the weekend, and are the same people who will insist that their friend takes a taxi home if they’ve been drinking, are they are probably the very same people that will offer to bring blankets and food down to the Leisure Centre to help 142 seniors who have been displaced by a fire.

It’s the good people of Mission that make all of us at the Mission RCMP want to contribute and help our community, to make this a better place to live, work and play in.  Thank you, Mission, we’ll see you out there!

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