BANFF – Police are investigating a sexual assault in Banff on Halloween night near the pedestrian bridge across the Bow River.
Banff RCMP say a group of teenage girls was walking near the pedestrian bridge on Oct. 31 when one was assaulted by a man in a Halloween costume.
Banff RCMP detachment commander Staff Sgt. Mike Buxton-Carr said police are continuing to investigate and look at potential leads.
“There was a group of young ladies together when one of them was assaulted briefly by a man and there’s been some descriptions of the costume and the mask that varied in description,” he said.
Buxton-Carr said police are working with the Town of Banff to examine traffic cameras that are in the vicinity to see if the various descriptions match up.
Given RCMP officers were patrolling the downtown area that night, he said they are also looking at their own police in-car cameras for a matching description.
“We’re looking minute-by-minute of our video to see if it happened to catch anyone on our in-car video that may match the various descriptions,” Buxton-Carr said. “It’s a painstaking process and they’re still working through it.”
Due to different descriptions of the man, Buxton-Carr said the police did not want to put out conflicting information that may have been not accurate.
“We didn’t want to put something out that may confuse the public or be inaccurate," he said.
"It hasn’t been clarified to that point yet. I can say we are responding to an allegation of a sexual assault that did not lead to injury and occurred near the pedestrian bridge and it remains under investigation.”
According to Statistics Canada data, there were 10 reported level one sexual assaults in 2019 and 11 in 2020 in the Town of Banff. A level one sexual assault involves minor or no injuries to the victim.
Anyone with information can contact the Banff RCMP detachment at 403-763-6600 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
