Police say forthcoming licence plate cameras will be 'valuable tool' for investigating illegal activity

Sault Ste. Marie Police Service confirms that it will install cameras at both the northern and eastern gateways of the city in order to track vehicles of interest in police investigations. 

The police service will receive a $28,797 Ontario Closed-Circuit Television Grant through the Ministry of the Solicitor General to install cameras that will take photos of licence plates entering and leaving Sault Ste. Marie. There's no firm timeline for when the cameras will be installed, but police spokesperson Lincoln Louttit tells SooToday that the public will be notified as the project nears completion, as per the requirements of the ministry and the privacy commission. 

“What they will be doing is taking photos of licence plates that come into Sault Ste. Marie, and leave Sault Ste. Marie. What’s important for the public to know is that information will only retained for 24 hours if the vehicle is not a vehicle of interest,” Louttit said. 

The police service says the cameras will have the potential to assist police in investigations surrounding gang activity, drugs, human trafficking and the Amber Alert system. 

“Obviously we’re located in a pretty unique spot that if anybody is travelling east or west through the country, and they don’t want to traverse through some rugged terrain on our old highways, then they have to come through Sault Ste. Marie,” said Louttit. “That will be a valuable tool, not only for our own service, but to help other services track some of this illegal activity.”

Community Mobilization Unit funding dries up next spring  

The police service has also confirmed that provincial funding for the Community Mobilization Unit - which includes the Community Crisis Response Team (CCRT), Community Safety Officers (CSO) and Community Oriented Response and Enforcement (CORE) - is slated to end in March 2022.   

The mobilization unit programs are being funded through grant monies offered by the Community Safety and Policing Grant (CSP) program, a three-year, $195-million funding mechanism initiated by the Ministry of the Solicitor General in 2019 in order to address widespread community safety concerns across the province. 

In December 2019, the ministry reported that Sault Ste. Marie Police Service would receive $2 million over three years for the Community Mobilization Unit, but that funding was offset when the province clawed back more than $814,000 from the police service earlier that same year amid widespread provincial spending cuts.