There has been a \u201cmeaningful decline\u201d in extortion-related threats and shots-fired incidents in 2026, the Surrey Police Service (SPS) says.<\/p>\n
In an update Friday, Chief Norm Lipinski said that in January, there were 10 shots-fired incidents related to extortion in the city. In February, there was only one such incident, he says, and in March there were three.<\/p>\n
As far as reported extortion threats, there were 44 in January. In February and March, the numbers dropped to 17 and 14, respectively.<\/p>\n
So far this year, the SPS says there have been 79 extortions reported. In total, 42 victims have come forward in 2026, with several of them reporting repeat incidents.<\/p>\n
By comparison, in the entirety of 2025, there were 133 reported extortions with 88 separate victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be clear: any threat against a business owner or resident is deeply concerning,\u201d Lipinski said.<\/p>\n
He says the SPS is providing victim support and boosting visible patrols, while it continues to work with the BC Extortion Task Force.<\/p>\n
Police have met with several groups in the city to address their concerns, he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past couple of months, I had the opportunity to meet with the Downtown Surrey BIA, South Asian Business Association, Surrey White Rock Board of Trade, and Punjabi Press Club,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have appreciated these solution-oriented discussions on extortions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SPS took over policing in Cloverdale on April 1, meaning it now manages all new extortion-related files in that area, along with Whalley, Newton, and South Surrey, Lipinski says.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, he says, police have taken steps in advance of the Surrey Khalsa Day Vaisakhi Parade, scheduled for April 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurrey Police Service has worked closely with the City of Surrey and event organizers to develop a comprehensive public safety plan, informed by provincial guidelines for large public events.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There has been a \u201cmeaningful decline\u201d in extortion-related threats and shots-fired incidents in 2026, the Surrey Police Service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-596054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}