Countdown on, outgoing Edmonton police chief looks back on 2024 and 'ridiculous' political influence on policing

Politics — not unsolved arson cases or guns or public safety — is the thing Edmonton Police Service chief Dale McFee is most worried about as he leaves for a job in the Alberta government.

Politics — not unsolved arson cases or guns or public safety — is the thing Edmonton Police Service chief Dale McFee is most worried about as he leaves for a job in the Alberta government. 

Some of those issues were top concerns in previous years, but the outgoing chief told CTV News Edmonton in a recent year-end interview that EPS has made good progress on many fronts. 

"If we can continue our trend, we probably could end up with a lower crime rate than we've ever had since 2013," McFee said, citing a decrease in shootings by 46 per cent over 2024 and attributing the overarching drop in crime, in part, to dismantling several established homeless camps last winter.

"Anybody that (sic) doesn't think that the stuff in the encampments and the gangs and stuff was contributing, they're not reading the headlines and they're not following the plot," he commented. 

 And on the topic of three active arson extortion investigations, he pointed to several arrests in one and "pretty good leads" in another. 

"I'm pretty happy with the progress that we made on that file. Obviously, it'd be better if we could actually stop them, but part of stopping them is get(ting) a few of these guys in custody." 

No, what is at the forefront of McFee's mind as his tenure as Edmonton's 23rd police chief comes to an end, what appears to haunt him from those six years, and what he believes is the biggest challenge facing Edmonton's 24th police chief, is a "real conflict" between city council and Edmonton Police Commission, fueled to some extent by critical rhetoric online.