Sudbury police call Crime Stoppers a vital link to the community

January is Crime Stoppers Month and the theme this year is "Be a Crime Stopper, keep your community safe."

A flag raising ceremony was held on Jan. 3/24 to kick-off Crime Stoppers Month in Greater Sudbury. (Alana Everson/CTV News Northern Ontario)

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In Greater Sudbury on Wednesday morning, Mayor Paul Lefebvre read a proclamation and law enforcement officials talked about the critical role Crime Stoppers plays in helping solve crimes as members of the public anonymously share information with police.

“We want people to recall how do we keep our community safer. Certainly, we have our law enforcement and our law services that play a large role but Crime Stoppers plays a key role as well which is citizen engagement,” said Lefebvre.

“That’s why it’s important for today to raise the awareness.”

Members of the Greater Sudbury Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) talked about how Crime Stoppers is a separate agency from police.

“This is done on a completely anonymous basis,” said OPP Chief Superintendent Mike Pilon.

“There are lots of checks and balances with respect to coordinators running the program to ensure that anonymity at all times and if that information would reveal somebody’s identity it is never used.”

Sudbury police chief Paul Pedersen called Crime Stoppers a vital link between the community and police.

“All of this information is information that would potentially never come to our attention,” he said.

“Whether it’s an investigative direction or it’s direct information about a crime we might not ever hear this if not for Crime Stoppers.”

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Representatives of Sudbury Rainbow Crime Stoppers said callers appreciate the confidential option to pass along information about a crime.

“So it’s completely anonymous and in fact, most people never collect their tip because the reason they are doing it is they are trying to make our community safer and it’s not about the money that they receive,” said the local Crime Stoppers board member Terry Ames.

Officials with Rainbow Crime Stoppers confirmed in 2023 over $17,000 in reward money was approved with $7,000 having been collected.