Smile, you’re on police surveillance camera

Effective today, 30 security cameras have been activated across the city in an effort to increase public safety.

In a press conference, Sault Police Chief Brent Duguay said the project has been in the works for a few years.

“This is the latest project we’ve undertaken to continue to modernize the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service and provide the best service we can to the community,” said Duguay.

The first 30 CCTV cameras have been installed in a number of locations across the city, including near long-term care and retirement facilities, at key intersections and other locations identified by Sault Police through an evidence-based review of calls for service.

“We drew our information mostly from our staff and the calls for service, but we also have our traffic stats through our Collision Reporting Centre. Obviously, we started to see trends in a certain areas,” Duguay said.

This targeted approach is designed to improve community safety, particularly for vulnerable residents.

“We’re anticipating a major impact to community safety through this initiative and other modernization initiatives we’ve been doing. Our whole goal doing anything like this is not just to spend money, we want to make our officers more effective and efficient in their duties and we feel this will help them with that,” said Duguay.

More information about the initiative, as well as a list of camera locations, is available on the Sault Police website.

Inspector Derek Dewar noted the cameras will not be monitored in real time, “except in exigent circumstances.”

“It’s a real-time tool but it’s used after the fact, generally,’ Dewar said.

The department announced the initiative last October, but the system only went operational today.

“We wanted to make sure we’re doing it right the first time,” said Duguay.

The cameras were purchased using one-time funding from the provincial government, amounting to roughly $150,000. The department matched those funds for a total cost of about $300,000, said Sault Police spokesperson Lincoln Louttit.

No additional staff members were hired to operate them.

“We didn’t do any additional hiring for this camera, but obviously if there were evidence on it, we’d have to go through our DEMs (Digital Evidence Management Unit) and our court system, so there will be some potential additional work to those units,” Duguay said.

Duguay said the department has an additional 15 cameras that will be added to the network sometime in the future. Those additional cameras will be placed in areas where officers frequently respond to calls for service.

Mayor Matthew Shoemaker, who sits on the Police Services Board, said other communities that have initiated CCTV camera systems have experienced tangible benefits, including faster response times, improved investigations and stronger deterrents against crime and disorder.

“These systems are to help ensure that incidents are not only detected, but also better understood, allowing police to deploy more resources resources more effectively and focus on problem areas before situations escalate,” said Shoemaker.