Canada’s Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction came to Windsor Saturday to give the keynote speech at a Crime Stoppers Conference, discussing his experiences with the organization, social media, and the power in anonymity.
“Empowering our citizens to play a significantly important role in keeping us all safe together, that has always been a shared responsibility and I think Crime Stoppers personifies that shared responsibility and how we work together,” Bill Blair Canada’s Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction said in his keynote speech Saturday morning at day three of the annual Ontario Association of Crime Stoppers Training Conference at the Holiday Inn on Huron Church Road.
Blair, a Liberal MP was appointed to cabinet last year, but before federal politics, served as the chief of the Toronto Police Service for 10 years until his retirement. Prior to his time as chief, Blair had a 30-year-career with the Toronto police.
“I was very much involved in criminal investigations over the course of my entire career and really came to value the information received from crime stoppers,” he said. “Not because it necessarily solved the crime — but it put us on the path to solving the crime.”
Blair said Crime Stoppers is about citizens looking out for each other and is an important tool in crime prevention and taking power away from criminals.
“The power of crime stoppers is it empowers witnesses and victims, it empowers citizens to take back control, it allows them to do it safely, with anonymity as anonymous tipsters,” Blair said. “ It takes away the anonymity of criminals, it takes away their power to intimidate and to silence — and that is it’s most extraordinary power.”
Blair also discussed the influence social media can play in catching criminals — expanding reach to different demographics.
He recalled a story from around 15-years ago when a Crime Stoppers coordinator had video footage of a robbery and wanted to put it on YouTube to push on social media. Blair said he was apprehensive, with memories of the popular TV show “Cops.”
“I’m thinking, I don’t want to glamorize this,” he said. “I was stuck in the old school thinking of we would do re-enactments.”
The video ended up going online and getting 6,000 views — he said Crime Stoppers tips raised 750 per cent that year for the department.
“The people that knew about this robbery aren’t watching the 6 o’clock news,” Blair said. “So going to those places to communicate with the audience we’re trying to reach made perfect sense, and I remember being dragged kicking and screaming to that knowledge.”
“That’s one of those times where the light goes on,” he said. “The world’s changing rapidly — try to keep up.”
Blair said at the time many police leaders across the continent were trying to control and restrict the use of social media by their people, later viewing it as an opportunity to be taken advantage of.
“For me, it was a hugely important thing and it came out of Crime Stoppers,” he said. “We use social media to communicate, how do we also use it to gather information and evidence and investigations? It framed our whole thinking.”
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In time, social media became a tool for law enforcement, in both gathering and sharing information.
“For the police, social media has become one of the best sources of intelligence, people share information that they may be reluctant to share with the authorities but they put in the public domain,” Blair said.
Tyler Lamphier the program manager for Crime Stoppers said it has been hugely successful for the program in both sharing releases and information from the police, while letting people know “we are the third wheel for reporting anonymously if somebody does want to remain in the shadows, so to speak,” but also their own social media campaigns often bring in more tips.
Lamphier said the largest social media campaign they’ve done was in partnership with the Windsor Humane Society, around Justice the dog.
Justice the dog gained national attention after he was found with his muzzle and his paws bound in electrical tape on Dec. 17, 2015, and left in a field off Walker Road. His photo was shared across social media pleading with the public for information. After a huge outcry from the community through social media, the man responsible was turned into the police a few days later.
“T hat actually was shared over 500,000 times and resulted in almost I think 150 tips being called into the office,” Lamphier said. “ The power of social media is you get the right image, with the right words and it just flies.”
Blair was one of the guest speakers at “Bridging Partnerships,” the annual Ontario Association of Crime Stoppers training conference, hosted this year in Windsor. Delegates from 29 different Crime Stoppers programs representing Ontario, Manitoba and Newfoundland meet for four days of training, education, and networking, Saturday was the event gala which included the OPP commissioners own pipes and drums award ceremony.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
