Crime Stoppers tips up 3 per cent in 2019, recovering $10 million-plus in property and drugs
Credit to Author: Gordon McIntyre| Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 21:10:02 +0000
It was a good year for Crime Stoppers, not so good for a few dozen criminals in the Lower Mainland and just beyond.
Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers — which covers an area from Boston Bar to the Sunshine Coast — received 5,130 tips in 2019, which led to 87 arrests and 165 charges laid.
Included in those arrests were five gang members.
“Although it’s probably not a number we can expect every year, it does show how powerful useful information is when it’s anonymously supplied through us to police and other authorities,” said Linda Annis, executive director of Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers.
The number of tips rose by three per cent over 2018, while the value of property and drugs recovered directly from Metro Vancouver Crime Stopper tips rose six-fold to $10.2 million, up from $1.7 million the year before.
That’s perhaps the most astonishing statistic, Annis said.
“It was an extraordinary year in terms of property and drugs recovered,” she said. “Tips about gang crime and illegal guns figure prominently in many of the calls we receive.
“Simply put, the numbers show how well the program is working because we guarantee anonymity for anyone supplying information, and because the information could lead to a reward of up to $2,000.”
Some of the drugs and firearms recovered, courtesy of tips to Crime Stoppers last year.
In most years the value of goods recovered as a result of Metro Crime Stoppers tips is in the neighbourhood of $3 million, she said. Those goods include vehicles, weapons, houses, jewelry, cash, gold, anything the police recover that was used to commit a crime or bought with the proceeds of crime; the drugs include mostly fentanyl, heroin and cocaine, along with some designer-type drugs.
Unlike, say, some calls to 911 — the waiter was rude, the coin washing machine wouldn’t take my loonie, do I move my clock forward or backward — the 5,130 tips recorded by Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers includes only serious tips that led to substantial investigations, Annis said.
“They were good, solid tips. We rarely get silly calls like 911 does.”
Linda Annis, executive director of Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers.
Metro Vancouver has had Crime Stoppers since the forward-looking Bob Stewart, who became police chief in Vancouver in 1981, introduced it as well as the Justice Institute of B.C. and other progressive initiatives.
“Chief Stewart saw it down in the States and thought, ‘Gee, this is a great program,’ ” Annis said. “Since its inception 35 years ago, and this really speaks to the success of it, we’ve had almost 9,000 arrests as a result of Crime Stoppers tips in Metro Vancouver alone, and over half a billion dollars of property and drugs recovered.
“I think those stats are pretty phenomenal. I realize that’s over 30-plus years of the program, but that’s a lot of arrests that wouldn’t have happened if Crime Stoppers wasn’t involved.”
Tipsters stay anonymous by using code numbers to collect their rewards. Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers is independent of police forces and is funded through (tax-deductible) donations at its solvecrime site.
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