The North Bay Police Chief says the new Community Response Team unveiled in January, is keeping busy in the downtown core despite the pandemic.
"Our community response team has been assigned to address the most significant, critical, and time-sensitive issues in North Bay, so if someone calls up about a loud muffler we will ask the community response team to actually address that in that specific area," explains Scott Tod, North Bay's Police Chief.
"One of their primary functions right now is to provide a foot patrol, bike patrol to the downtown core in North Bay. We have heard loud and clear from the downtown businesses that it is important to have a police officer presence in the downtown core."
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Tod says they receive about 14 calls per day in downtown core that the police attend.
"That means 14 calls in 24 hours so it is not like there has never been a police presence but right now we have a foot patrol," said Tod.
"We have received both positive and negative comments in regards to that; positive when we are there, negative when we are not.
"We have worked hard to try and increase that patrol but again we are a service of 75 or 76 patrol officers that address 34,000 calls per year for service so our officers do not always have the ability to stay downtown on foot patrol constantly."
While Tod believes the program has already kept crime to a minimum downtown, the North Bay Police admit it is a challenge to get a real gauge on the situation during a lockdown when many of the downtown businesses have been closed.
"We can still gauge the team based on the officer's activities that are down there, the arrests they are making with the people that still hang around down there whether the businesses are open or not," said Jeff Warner, North Bay's Police Inspector.
"We still do have an influx of people that are in the downtown core and we can sort of gauge the officer's activities down there based on the results they produce."
