Crime Stoppers

Crime Stoppers Works To Prevent Crime During The Vancouver 2010 Winter Games

The Canadian Crime Stoppers Association (CCSA), member of Crime Stoppers International, has partnered up with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and is seeking assistance from the Canadian public in reporting criminal information that may negatively impact the 2010 Games in Vancouver.

Crime Stoppers is a civilian, non profit, charitable organization that brings together in a tripartite relationship, the police services of a community, the media and the community in the fight against crime.  Crime Stoppers provides citizens with the ability to supply the police anonymously with information about a crime or potential crime of which they have knowledge.  “We are asking for help from the Canadian public in reporting any information that could help prevent criminal activity during the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games,” says CCSA Chair Ralph Page.

Please call the Crime Stoppers TIPS line to report any criminal activity that could potentially impact the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or text a message using Keyword “BCTIP” to 274637 (CRIMES).  You can also report a tip through the website: www.solvecrime.ca.  Cash rewards are available to people who call the program and their information leads to an arrest.

For more information on the Crime Stoppers Olympic project, visit www.canadiancrimestoppers.org.

A recent CTV report from Deborah Jones details the efforts made to keep the games, the athletes and organizers of both the Olympics and the Special Olympics secure.

Vancouver Wrapped Up In Billion-Dollar Security Blanket

Vancouver - With over 15,000 highly-trained security personnel, backed by a lethal arsenal of military hardware, Vancouver is about to be wrapped in a billion-dollar security blanket for the Winter Olympics.  To battle potential threats from terrorism, crime and violent protests at the February 12-28 Games, 15,500 police, military and private security guards have converged on this western Canadian city, said officer Mandy Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (ISU).

But the security operation – and its one billion Canadian dollars budget – has drawn intense criticism.  Vocal anti-games protesters say the money should go to social causes like Vancouver’s notorious homelessness problem.  Legal activists, meanwhile, say they fear civil rights violations, and have charged that police tactics of questioning protesters at their work or while shopping is harassment.

Organizers are tight-lipped about specific threats.  “We are continually monitoring and examining all potential threats and risks. We don’t elaborate on what information we receive,” Edwards said.  “We are planning to a medium threat level, and we can ramp that up or down. The games right now are at a low level.”

Vancouver’s location is a strength and a weakness, said professor Allen Sens, an international security specialist at the University of British Columbia.  Olympic venues are spread over 15,000 square kilometres (5,800 square miles), from the urban metropolis of Vancouver to the rugged mountains of Whistler, 120 kilometres north of here.  In Vancouver, squeezed onto a delta between the US border, rivers, ocean and mountains, security plans call for navy divers, air force helicopters to transport SWAT teams quickly, surveillance cameras, police dogs, snowmobiles and even fighter jets — which the North American Aerospace Defence Command has said will use “lethal force” if necessary.

The ISU’s official task is to protect Olympic athletes and officials, VIPs, nine competition venues and 18 other locations including the athletes’ village and media centres, said Edwards.  verything else remains part of the “urban domain,” and will be policed as usual by municipal police officers.  One analyst said the gap between venues and “urban domain” could pose danger.

Official Olympic venues will be secure but “all other areas are going to be completely exposed,” said guerilla warfare historian Andre Gerolymatos of the local Simon Fraser University.  They’re assuming if a terrorist attacks, the primary target will be the Games,” Gerolymatos said.  But to draw global media attention during the Olympics, “any terrorist act within Vancouver will do…a traffic jam is a good venue for a terrorist.”

The budget for games security was pegged at 175 million Canadian dollars in Vancouver’s Olympic bid, but has snowballed to about one billion.  “The original estimate for the security cost of the games was a hideous under-estimate,” said Sens.  The one billion dollar budget is consistent “with the types of security mounted at previous Games. Since Munich in 1972 there’s been a growing concern about security.”

The massive security presence will be hard to miss – not least because of a white military balloon the size of a car floating 300 metres above Whistler, where skiing, ski jumping and sliding events will be held.  The high-tech balloon can spot objects 32 kilometres away “is designed to observe the backcountry approaches in to the Whistler Athletes Village,” police captain Chris Poulton said.  Called a Persistent Surveillance Aerostat, or just PSA, “it’s a helium-filled balloon and there’s a camera on it, and it’s attached to a ground station monitored by army members,” said Poulton.  “It helps us be the eyes for the (police).”