More than 60 men and women helped Take Back the Night on Wednesday, Oct. 8, in Castlegar.

Take Back the Night is an event sponsored by Castlegar RCMP victims services and aims to educate people about violence against women and children.

The crowd gathered at the Canadian Tire parking lot and walked to the Safeway parking lot where Cpl. Postnikoff of the Castlegar RCMP and a member of social services spoke about violence against women.

Postnikoff spoke about the need for women who find themselves in abusive relationships to report these crimes to the local detachment.

“People continue to be fearful of the police and fail to report crimes,” Postnikoff said.

“We have 16 service standards and all victims and witnesses are treated with sensitivity and understanding.”

She went on to say the police offer victims the names of other helping agencies, once they have talked to them.

“They will not be judged and they are not alone,” said Postnikoff of women in abusive relationships.

Postnikoff gave some reassuring statistics about Castlegar.

During the year between October 2006 and October 2007, 42 cases of spousal assault were reported to the RCMP and of those cases reported 33 resulted with charges being laid.

This statistic went down quite a bit with 25 cases reported between October 2007 and October 2008.

Of the 25 reported cases 23 resulted in charges being laid.

Postnikoff said she was not sure if less women are being abused or less women are reporting spousal abuse.

As for the event, Postnikoff thought it was very well attended and it was the first event she has been asked to speak at in Castlegar.

“It was nice to see that men supported this event,” she said.

Other notables at the event were city councillors Russ Hearne, Gordon Turner, Kevin Chernoff and Raymond Koehler.

Hearne said he was impressed with the number of people who attended the event.

He said the statistics read out almost made him feel ashamed of being a man considering the way many of his counterparts behave.

“I had never been before (to the event) and we decided it was a good time to go and learn about this issue. We also wanted to bring our daughter, especially since she is a young woman,” said Hearne.