As the city’s most populous district, Newton has been the focus of much unwanted attention because of its crime problem, and Surrey as a whole has received a fair amount of negative coverage as well. When Mayor Linda Hepner replaced Dianne Watts in last fall’s municipal election, she pledged more police “boots on the ground” to help clean up the city’s crime problem. Oliver Lum, communications manager for the City of Surrey’s mayor’s office, said about 30 new Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers will arrive in the city “over the coming weeks,” and that Surrey “has also formally requested and funded the hiring of an additional 100 officers, whom we expect to arrive over the next 12 months, bringing the total to over 800 RCMP officers in Surrey.”

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