Eyes and ears of new volunteer program good news for downtown business owners

By Nick Liard

The general manager and chef at Capers in downtown Belleville, believes the city’s core is very safe, but it could always use an extra set of eyes.

That is just what the Belleville Police Service and the Belleville Community Policing are hoping the new Volunteer Response Team-Downtown Patrol’s unit will do.

“Volunteers within the VRT will be working in groups and in essence will be an extra set of ears and eyes for the police in the downtown area,” said Sgt. Julie Forestell.

The goal of the program is for the community to help assist the police as ambassadors, and to build a relationship with the police services.

That’s good news for some downtown business owners.

Jeffrey Camacho of Capers says, “I don’t think there is anything wrong with the downtown area. I think people have a perception of it being a dangerous place, but everybody is really friendly. However, I do think it is good because anything extra to keep our people safe is good in our books, and it just shows that people here are nice people who care about each other.”

Volunteers are welcome to help out with any of the community policing programs. There will be training for the volunteers, and Forestell wants to make sure it’s known that they are not police officers, but they will be armed with cell phones.

“They are volunteers, they are not police officers,” she said. “The police officers will respond the same way they would usually do to any other type of incident. There is a training component to the VRT, as well there will be a kit that will be prepared for them, and a cell phone will be a part of the kit.”

While it seems like this would help crime in the downtown area, Peter Reedyk, manager of Chumleighs on Front Street believes that the crimes don’t take place out in the open where his used video games and movies are sold.

“My first response to that is that obviously the more eyes the better,” said Reedyk. “But most crimes don’t happen out in the open. In my eight years of being downtown, I have yet to see very much crime take place on Front Street in the open. If the volunteers are going to go into nooks and crannies of the alley ways they may uncover some things.”

The plan is too see how the team will work and go from there on if it is something the Police Services will keep long term.

“Well hopefully this last a long time, this is a new initiative,” said Forestell.  “We are anticipation that it will be very beneficial to the community and police. So as long as there are volunteers and the program is being accepted with positive outcomes, we will continue with it.”