Sgt. Rob Cozine, Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers coordinator, at North Battleford city council's meeting. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

City council

Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers makes stop in North Battleford

Apr 26, 2023 | 12:47 PM

Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers visited the City of North Battleford’s council meeting this week to provide an update on the non-profit’s work.

Sgt. Rob Cozine, Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers coordinator, reminded everyone that those who leave a tip with the organization do not provide their name, and do not need to testify in court afterwards.

They will be identified with a number, for example, 100. They can call back later to receive an update to find out if their tip helped policy to charge an offender. If their tip was successful and assisted police, they will receive a monetary reward. The reward, with the amount determined by the Crime Stoppers board, will be handed to the tipster at a specified bank and date. Tipsters can receive awards of up to $2,000.

“You ask for the bank manager and say you are there to pick up ‘Envelope 100’,” Cozine said. “He or she goes and gets that and hands it to you and you walk out of the bank with a $1,000 reward. He doesn’t ask you your name, your shoe size, or what you had for lunch.”

Battlefords RCMP Cpl. James Fenrich at Monday’s meeting. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

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People can contact Crime Stoppers for unsolved crimes or crimes about to be committed.

“The police when they are assigned a Crime Stoppers tip will fully investigate each one and report back to the division Crime Stoppers coordinator with the status of the investigation,” Cozine said.

Some people don’t report crimes because they don’t trust the criminal justice system, fear retribution, or have a lack of understanding of the concept of Crime Stoppers and wonder if it is truly anonymous.

But Cozine assured people that all information given to Crime Stoppers programs is guaranteed not to be disclosable. Even if the tipsters were known, they remain anonymous.

“Calls are not recorded or traced, and the IP [Internet Protocol] address is not available to us,” he said. “Call display is not used. Online reports are afforded the same level of anonymity as phone calls.”

Crime Stoppers receives tips on a wide variety of offences, from terrorism and drug trafficking to school crimes and bullying, and child abuse.

For a bullying case, it may not be a criminal offence, but Crime Stoppers will contact the school to advise them to investigate.

When considering time sensitivity, Cozine said Crime Stoppers will respond immediately and advise the local RCMP detachment of the tip information received.

For example, if a person is concerned about potential criminal activity at a house on their street, they may want to call Crime Stoppers to provide a tip.

“That little information you have about what’s going on at that house may be just what we need to get that information assigned and get that search warrant to get into the house,” Cozine said.

Even a licence plate number can be enough sometimes.

Mayor David Gillan said he was pleased to hear about Crime Stoppers’ work— both from the provincial perspective as well as from the local RCMP detachment perspective.

“[We] look forward to learning more, and seeing how this tool can help us in our city to solve some crime that hasn’t been solved, as well as maybe deter [crime],” Gillan said. “It’s an ongoing learning process for us as council.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow