A record-breaking drug bust last week, and a record number of homicides last year, has Guelph’s police chief appealing to the public.
The message: see something, say something.
“We want to hear from our citizens,” chief Gord Cobey said at a Guelph Police Services Board meeting Thursday.
“I often attend different public events, and I sometimes have people, they talk to me about things and often a thing I hear is ‘I would’ve called the police but I didn’t want to bother you’ or those types of things.
He emphasized police are available 24/7, and even when in doubt, pick up the phone.
“We exist to serve them and earn their trust.”
He referenced last week’s drugs and weapons seizure that saw a 37-year-old Brampton man arrested. Eight firearms and more than $5 million in drugs were seized in a drug trafficking investigation that began last November.
He said even a short time ago, a drug bust of this magnitude “would have been unheard of.”
“It’s important we recognize the success of that project,” Cobey said. “But I also think we need to be mindful of the trends that we’re experiencing.”
The trend, he said, is that Guelph police officers are “regularly seizing illegal handguns” in the city.
In the first 12 weeks of the year, Cobey said 14 firearms have been seized in incidents where charges were laid. He said 11 of those were handguns.
“When our community members sees headlines like this, I think that it’s important that they know that we are working very hard – obviously with the board – but implementing all the things we talked about, to be mindful of these trends,” Cobey said.
“My concern, when you’re looking at that type of seizure is always the ties to organized crime,” added deputy chief Steve Gill. “We certainly don’t want that in our community. That makes me nervous.”
Another concern Cobey referenced is violent crime.
“There were five homicides in the City of Guelph last year. That too, is unheard of,” he said.
“We typically, on average over the last 10 or 15 years, probably used to average approximately one homicide a year in our city. Some, there were two, many there were none.”
The fifth homicide, police confirm, is the investigation into the death of Mike Galizzi.
“His remains were found February 1 in Preservation Park, but (police) believe he was killed shortly after he disappeared in early December,” police spokesperson Scott Tracey said in an email.
He said if any community members have concerns about criminal activity, using auto theft as another example, pick up the phone.
“When we have illegal drugs, we often have other illegal activities involving weapons, handguns, human trafficking,” Cobey said. “These are things that often occur together.”
“We’re not immune to the crime trends in the much larger urban centres around us.”
