kamloopsthisweek.com kamloopsthisweek kamthisweek
WEDNESDAY MELTED AWAY
BUSKERS ON THE WAY TODAY’S WEATHER
Second annual Buskers Festival begins Thursday
Sunny and warm High 29 C Low 13 C
What happened to the ice cream trucks of our childhoods?
COMMUNITY/A13
NEWS/A16
RCMP defends actions of city officers
Federal Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor participates in training delivered by St. John Ambulance at the Boys and Girls Club in North Kamloops. The minister was in town on Thursday to announce the B.C. and Yukon chapter of the lifesaving organization has received $400,000 from the federal government to revamp its occupational health and safety training to include the use of Naloxone and artificial respiration. Several of the Boys and Girls Club staff have participated in St. John ambulance Naloxone training. MICHAEL POTESTIO/KTW
COMPLAINANTS SAY POLICE NEED DIVERSITY TRAINING FOLLOWING INCIDENTS MICHAEL POTESTIO STAFF REPORTER michael@kamloopsthisweek.com
The Kamloops RCMP is defending how its officers handled two incidents in which complainants told Vancouver media outlets the detachment needs more diversity training. On July 6 at about 3 a.m., police responded to the Duchess Nightclub in North Kamloops, where Ashcroft man, Johnathan Hall, claimed he was assaulted and called the N-word — an incident his mother described as a hate crime that local Mounties did not take seriously. On June 16 at about 11:30 p.m., Ben Fulton, who is blind, ended up handcuffed and in the back of a police cruiser following an incident at a Valleyview gas station. Fulton said there was a confrontation with a clerk who told him his guide dog wasn’t allowed inside the store. Fulton said he believes officers’ actions show a lack of training on the part of the RCMP. Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jodi Shelkie told KTW the officers involved in both cases followed proper protocols. “In neither of these situations is it something where race or disability came in [to play],” Shelkie said, noting the detachment has heard criticism that officers didn’t handle the incidents appropriately. See SHELKIE, A7
NI S S AN
RIVE
ISSAN R CITY N
Naloxone added to first-aid training MICHAEL POTESTIO STAFF REPORTER michael@kamloopsthisweek.com
The B.C. and Yukon chapter of St. John Ambulance has received $400,000 from the federal government to revamp its occupational health and safety training to include the use of Naloxone and artificial respiration. Federal Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor was in Kamloops last Thursday to make the announcement and participate in training delivered by the lifesaving organization at the Boys and
NOW
Girls Club in North Kamloops. The new program will build upon St. John Ambulance’s existing occupational first-aid program, standardizing the act of administrating Naloxone in emergency first-aid training. Naloxone is a drug that temporarily reverses the effects of an overdose. “This means that every one of the nearly 40,000 people who take the first-aid courses in the province of Yukon and British Columbia every year will learn how to save a life by using Naloxone and giving artificial
respiration,” Petitpas Taylor told a crowd gathered at the John Todd Centre. Karen MacPherson, St. John Ambulance CEO for B.C. and Yukon, told KTW the money will be spent designing and developing the new curriculum for the program, which will have an online component. MacPherson said the occupational firstaid program is mandatory training at many work sites for the construction, mining and manufacturing sectors. See MINISTER, A6
D#30150
JULY 24, 2019 | Volume 32 No. 59
SA LES EVENT OFFER ENDS JULY 31ST *See Dealership for Details
2405 Trans-Canada Hwy. Kamloops 250-377-3800 · RiverCityNissan.com