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CST VICTOR KWONG TORONTO POLICE CORP COMM Good morning and thank you very much for coming
to Police Headquarters. Today I'd like to introduce to you Superintendent John Tanouye,
My name is Superintendent John Tanouye from 41 Division. I would like to thank all the
members of the media for coming out today. Today the Toronto Police Service would like
to make the public aware of a series of distraction thefts that have been taking place in the
GTA over the several past months targeting predominantly vulnerable and senior citizens
in our city. Detective Wes Neal of 41 Division will be advising the media about the distraction
thefts in conjunction with our Crime Stoppers Unit which will be providing you with a re-enactment
of the distraction thefts with the purpose to bring about a heightened public awareness
of this crime with the hopes of identifying and apprehending the suspects that are responsible
for these crimes. I would like to introduce you to Detective Wes Neal. DETECTIVE WES NEAL
TORONTO POLICE SERVICE41 DIVISION MAJOR CRIME UNIT. Thank you Superintendent. Good morning.
I am Detective Wes Neal, 41 Division's Major Crime Unit. I want to start of by thanking
our partners in the media today for attending and assisting us in getting out this important
information to our community. Our message this morning is two fold. #1 We want to make
the public aware of these types of distraction thefts that are occurring in the city of Toronto
and the GTA. #2 In conjunction with our Crime Stoppers program, we want to provide a vehicle
in which the community can provide information regarding these thefts in an anonymous manner.
In the past several months in the city of Toronto has seen an increase in these distraction
thefts. These criminals have been preying on our community's most vulnerable citizens,
our seniors. Often these occurrences, the suspects attend busy areas such as shopping
malls and parking plazas. They typically attend these areas in a vehicle and usually one or
two females will select and approach a victim while a male driver remains in a vehicle.
A distraction is used, usually by asking for directions or engaging the victim in a conversation.
The suspect will offer gifts of jewellery, often necklaces, rings and bracelets. The
suspects will continue to confuse the victim and place these fake gold items around the
victims' necks or on their hands or wrists while removing the victim's necklaces and
jewellery. These criminals are highly skilled at their trade and they often commit these
crimes without their targets even being aware they have been victimized. I personally have
attended several of these incidents and have seen first hand the devastation that these
types of crimes cause to our victims, especially when cherished wedding rings and irresplaceable
sentimental jewellery is lost to these criminals. We are making this appeal today as spring
is just around the corner, meaning people will be spending more time outdoors, wearing
lighter clothing, making these types of thefts much easier to commit. A video depicting a
re-enactment of these types of thefts has been produced with the help of our Toronto
Police Video Services Unit and our Crime Stoppers Unit. This video will be uploaded to the Crime
Stoppers website as well as youtube. This will encourage people to provide any information
to the police regarding persons involved in these types of incidents. At this time I would
like to call upon our Coordinator of our Crime Stoppers program Chris Scherk. DETECTIVE CHRIS
SCHERK TORONTO CRIMES STOPPERS COORDINATOR: Thank you Wes. I am Chris Scherk, and I am
the Toronto Coordinator for the Crime Stoppers program. I'd like to thank you for coming
out today. We appreciate the media coming out covering these events. Crime Stoppers
is a partnership between the media, the public and the police. It's important that we get
our message to the public through you, so thank you for coming. I'd also like to thank
Superintendent John Tanouye. He called me a couple of weeks ago about putting this program
together and the support from 41 Division in assisting Crime Stoppers putting this together
has been outstanding. I don't have a lot to add in regards to what Wes said. I just really
want to drive home that video. We do a Crime of the Week every week on Crime Stoppers.
This is a little bit different in that this one also serves as a public awareness campaign
as well, and I would really like to drive it home. If you can put it out through your
social media, your website, anything that you can, you can go to our Crime Stoppers
website 222TIPS.com Crime of the Week, watch the video and for the people receiving that
message, the public, I'd ask you to watch the video, contact all the Seniors in your
life, your mothers, your grandmothers. These are potential victims that don't have to be.
Forewarned is forearmed. If we can get the message out, we can certainly do a lot towards
reducing this kind of theft. So, again it is 222TIPS.com Crime of the Week. Thank you.
I will turn it over to Wes or anyone else for some questions. REPORTER: Detective Neal,
can you talk a little bit about (inaudible) I feel like we just do so many stories exactly
like this and we put the message out there so many times and yet you say that distraction
thefts are going up in this city. How is it that they are still getting away with this?
DETECTIVE WES NEAL: Yes it is frustrating for us a police service and for the investigators.
I think the best way is just this: Awareness, getting the information out to possible victims,
speaking to victims, like Chris had said, and allowing them to better protect themselves.
The Toronto Police Service as well as other Services throughout the GTA have made numerous
arrests in regards to these types of crimes. They are put before the courts and eventually
they come out. We find that these distraction thefts have a rolling life span. Us in 41
Division we seen a spike these type of crimes. We make arrests and they tend to move on to
other parts of the city and other parts of the GTA. So, it is about awareness, it is
about, like you said there is a lot of talk about distraction thefts, but with the video
that we have produced we want people to understand what exactly is happening, what is a distraction
theft to better protect themselves. REPORTER: How many of these distraction thefts have
you had in 41 Division? DET WES NEAL Since November we have had 17 and that is just 41
Division. Like I said, I know that our partners the east, 42 Division, and 43 Division in
Scarborough have had a considerable amount as well. REPORTER: Do you think the same people
are responsible for all 17? DETECTIVE WES NEAL: I do not, I think that these are groups
that roll through different areas, like I said as quickly as we make an arrest, it is
almost like another group steps up and starts the same type of behaviour. REPORTER: What
advice should we be giving to seniors who are elderly friends? What should we be telling
them? And what should they be watching for? DETECTIVE WES NEAL: I think the most important
think is a lot of these incidents happen in crowded areas like I said, in shopping malls,
in plaza parking lots. I think the key is to protect your personal space. A lot of these
things are done, like I said, they are hand wizards, they come in and there is not a lot
of racket made or attention drawn to them. Protect your personal space. If you have to
wear jewellery, try and cover it up and just be aware of it. If you can leave your stuff
at home then do so. That is the message that we need to get out to our seniors. REPORTERS:
What is it that people are saying to these seniors to get that close to them to be able
to get their hands around them and take this jewellery. What are some of the tactics they
are using to kind of "pull them in" DETECTIVE WES NEAL: I would describe it as killing them
with kindness. They will approach a senior and kill them with all kinds of compliments.
There is a lot of touching involved and very nice words to gain their trust. A lot of our
seniors are independent. They are out there. They are doing their shopping, minding their
own business. They worked hard all their lives and they are being accosted by these criminals.
I think there has been many, many different approaches from asking for directions to hospitals
to telling the victim they remind them of their deceased mother, hence wanting to give
them a gift of jewellery, asking for directions to hospitals and different ideas like that.
We have seen several of them. REPORTER: You have said you have gone to interview some
of these people who have been victimized. Talk about the impact of these crimes. Is
there a sense that maybe some people are not even coming forward with some of these because
of the embarassment. DETECTIVE WES NEAL: Absolutely. Like I have said I have been to several of
these scenes and spoken to the victims. It's devastating, heartbreaking for us a police
officers to go to these and hear the stories. I can speak of a few and one in particular,
an elderly lady. He necklace was taken and she said to me it was given to her by her
deceased husband and as she started getting very emotional saying that this necklace was
a sign of her husband being with her every day and now it is gone. This jewellery moves
very quickly. Gold is a commodity that is very valuable these days. It is moved very
quickly, melted down, sold very, very quickly. Just the devastation in the victims feeling
very embarassed, some of the things I am told by these victims they feel embarassed that
they didn't see it coming. A lot of times the theft isn't realized until hours later
when they get home and they notice that their jewellery is gone. It has a devastating effect
not just on the senior but on the family. They lose their confidence of going out into
our city which is a big part for seniors to be able to live their lives independently
and do their own things. So I just reiterate we need to sit down with our seniors, whether
it be our parents, our aunts, our uncles, our neighbours and like Chris was saying,
this video will be available to the media as well as in its different forms on youtube
and on the Crime Stoppers media. Sit down with your elderly mother or father. Use the
video. As you can see we have done a re-enactment to really have them understand what exactly
is done. There is generally no violence involved in these things. Again, slide of a hand and
a lot of times it is not even known by the victims that their items have been taken until
quite some time later. REPORTER: Detective Neal, obviously from the culprit's standpoint,
the power of suggestion, the power of influence that there must be the ability to trust the
person who they don't know. There is probably something very specific about the people they
are targeting to be able to get that close to the person to touch them. Most people won't
be influence by that and they won't be persuaded by it. There must be something you can talk
about the victims that is very specific that the culprits look for. DET WES NEAL: Yeah,
I believe that these suspects go out and they make several attempts before they are successful.
I don't know if there is any one thing that they see and they go after but at the start
of the crime it is very , like I said, they are very nice. Seniors are some of the most
trusting people in this world, and that is what they do. They take advantage of their
trust and give them compliments, you know, make them feel good. A lot of touching, a
lot of hugging and that starts off the crime, and from there it is a slide of a hand and
these suspects are gone quicker than you can blink an eye. REPORTER: Looking at the video
(inaudible) Is age a factor. Is that a common element age? DETECTIVE WES NEAL: Yes I think
our victims are targeted. I know that when you go to any shopping plaza and you look
around for most of us, we'll be able to see people who are alone is another key in it.
To approach people that are alone, and their age probably has a lot to do with it, and
again, they approach them and engage in conversation and sometimes
they
are successful. We
get
a lot
of
reports