In its latest bid to combat serial property crimes, Richmond RCMP has launched a webpage dedicated to suspects they’ve been unable to identify.
“Richmond Help Identify,” as it’s called, is a collection of rotating images of suspects caught on property owners’ surveillance footage.
The vast majority of the images are of serial break-in offenders, thieves and fraudsters, all of whom have been caught on cameras belonging to the property owner or store in question. A recent rise in the number of people arming themselves with surveillance equipment has led to more images coming into the hands of the police.
But they are not always able to identify the suspect, hence Richmond RCMP’s appeal for members of the public to hop onto the page and have a look at the faces.
“We went live with this (page) near the end of last year,” said Richmond RCMP’s Cpl. Dennis Hwang.
“We’re getting some success, but we could do with more eyes on these pictures and would like to see even more traffic on the website.
“This is not something a lot of detachments are doing, but we like to close cases and what we’re starting to see, is a lot more video surveillance footage coming in from the property owners. We can’t always identify the suspects, however, and we sometimes need a little bit of help from the public.”
In some cases, added Hwang, “people are reluctant to come forward, so hopefully this will make it easier for them.
“They might very well know this person from getting on a bus or train every day, you never know.
“And property offenders are often tied in with other offences; there are some notorious offenders out there that we’d like to be identified.
“If we could get some help from the public, it could clear up a lot of files. We really don’t want these images to go to waste and cases to go cold.”
Asked about privacy concerns arising from the proliferation of the aforementioned surveillance cameras, Hwang said the vast majority are pointing at the property owners’ own patios, porches, entrance ways or parkades.
“It’s all been positive from our standpoint.”
Go online to RCMP.ca/richmondidentify to see the latest batch of property crime suspects who are doing the rounds in Richmond.
