The North Bay Police Service revealed it received 38 misconduct complaints from the public in 2024.
That number is down from more than 40 complaints in 2023.
"We had 38 complaints that were initiated this year, 25 of them were public complaints received by provincial oversight bodies," explained Police Chief Daryl Longworth during January's Police Services Board meeting Wednesday morning.
"Of those complaints, the vast majority were either withdrawn by the provincial oversight body as recognizing it wasn't worth pursuing or withdrawn by the complainant. In a small number of cases that were investigated they were found unsubstantiated, there was nothing the officer did wrong."
Most of those complaints originate through the provincial website Law Enforcement Complaints Agency also known as LECA.
LECA is responsible for receiving, managing, and overseeing public complaints about misconduct for all municipal, regional and provincial police officers.
However, Longworth notes that he initiated 13 internal investigations over the course of 2024 and one member of the police service was fired.
"Of those, three were found to be substantiated, and we took some disciplinary action against a member," he said.
"One member was terminated and the rest have been either withdrawn or unsubstantiated or still in the process of being investigated."
Longworth would not release any details about the firing or whether the individual was a sworn officer.
"I don't want to talk about labour relationship issues in public, but just wanted to highlight that stat," he said.
Longworth, who is just closing in on his one-year anniversary as North Bay's top cop, is impressed with the complaints number in 2024.
"So when you look at the big picture, over the thousands of interactions we have with the community every year, to have 38 complaints initiated, I think is a very reasonable number and I think it's very demonstrative of the professional way that our officers do business every single day," stated Longworth.
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