POLICE FAIL TO INFORM COMMUNITY OF LOCAL CRIME SPREE

This is neither the first nor the last time that police will decide against giving citizens a heads up when there is a local crime spree underway. Afterall they apparently would rather sacrifice a citizen or two rather than inform large numbers of citizens that there are certain crimes that they have great difficulty in catching the culprits much less in preemptively preventing the crime. In this case it was a string of home invasions, auto thefts and robberies some involving violence.

Just after midnight on November 27 a fifteen year old was making the short walk over to his grandparents house in his Hamilton neighbourhood. A car pulled up beside him and he was beaten with a baseball bat by two men. The teen's father has stated that if they knew about this rash of crimes and violence in their neighbourhood they would have driven their son that night.

It appears as if police departments have full discretion whether or not to warn citizens about specific criminal behaviour in their areas. There have even been instances of a balcony rapist stalking a neighbourhood and local women not being warned about keeping their balconies locked even in hot weather.

The Waterloo Region Record carried this story last Saturday titled "Police failed to warn public about crime spree".