Residents are the "eyes and ears" for police and the city's top cop encourages people to call in suspicious or criminal activity.
An hour-long virtual roundtable this week focused on keeping the business community safe. It was hosted by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce and featured Timmins Police Chief John Gauthier, Insp. Darren Dinel and Insp. Rick Blanchette, who dispelled myths about who is committing crimes, the impact of Bill C-75 on police and more.
“Community safety is dependent on a couple of things — the community, of course, and the police," said Gauthier.
"As citizens in the City of Timmins, you’re the eyes and ears for the police."
While police can stumble on crimes, he said the community needs to be actively contacting the police when there is suspicious activity or when criminal activity has occurred.
Gauthier often hears from people that they don't want to bother the police with something trivial.
“Sometimes that little component is the information we require to follow up on an investigation, a missing piece for Inspector Dinel possibly to get a search warrant to start doing an active investigation. My message here is there’s no reason here at all for the business community to think that they’re bothering us. That’s our job,” he said.
He acknowledged the way the service responds "may not satisfy 100 per cent of the people 100 per cent of the time."
Calls for service are triaged depending on importance. Gauthier assured people that police will, however, get to their calls and do what they can to satisfy concerns.
Police presence in the downtown core, said Gauthier, has been stepped up.
"We’ve heard the concerns from the downtown BIA members and the community at large and we’ve done I think a very good job at throwing resources to the downtown, especially right in the middle of the summer when traditionally I have the least amount of staff working ‘cause everybody wants the summer off. We undertook to reorganize the organization a little bit and we threw a bunch of bodies to the downtown area,” he said.
While he couldn't say if it led to arrests, he said there was "really good feedback".
DInel said street outreach and community safety officers were in the downtown as well.
In the streets adjacent to downtown, he said they did " a lot of drug enforcement for traffickers that were on streets or in close proximity to our downtown."
Dinel also said a new program is focused on connecting people with addiction to treatment. Two officers have been selected for it and will patrol the downtown and other "hotspot" areas for drug consumption to try and connect people with treatment.
There was also talk about who is committing crimes downtown.
“I will dispel a myth that’s out there ... that most of the problems in and around downtown area are done by the homeless people and that the homeless people make up the majority of the arrests. That’s false. That’s absolutely false,” said Gauthier. “Even on the opioid side that the people unfortunately who have died over this past calendar year since January are homeless people, there’s no truth to that.”
Gauthier also explained some of the changes made to the Criminal Code in terms of conditions of release and bail with Bill C-75, which went into effect in December 2019.
“The decision of whether or not to release an accused person pending trial and on what conditions is one of the most significant decisions made in the criminal process. That was highlighted in Bill C-75. The decision-making starts with us because we have hands-on of that accused person, we make the arrest, and then it’s up to my staff — the men and women of the service — to make the decision whether or not they’re going to hold for a bail hearing or release,” he said.
Unless there are "really exigent circumstances" or reasons police can articulate why an accused has to be held, he said officers must release someone from custody.
The more violent the crime, he said, the easier it would be for police to give reasons to hold a person.
Any release conditions must also be realistic.
"We never had to consider that before, now we do. The accused should be able to comply with the conditions that are set out by the Justice of the Peace or by the police. For example, a condition requiring a homeless or mentally ill person to report to the police weekly or monthly may be virtually impossible for them to comply with so we have to consider that. Where before, quite frankly, it was we thought ‘yup, that person’s going to report’ and if you were in violation of that we would charge them for failing to comply with the release orders,” he said.
To safeguard from bandits, Gauthier said businesses should lock their doors with sound locking devices such as a properly-installed deadbolt, use blinds or curtains to stop people from looking in, and have proper lighting and motion sensors.
He also talked about "hardening the target" so that the risk of being caught is greater. Business owners can do that with surveillance cameras, alarm system, or window gates across some of the windows, said Gauthier.
