London police have a new presence in the downtown core.
The media and politicians were offered a tour of their new foot patrol office on Dundas Street just east of Richmond Street.
“We’ve seen crime go up exponentially in the city of London,” said London Police Acting Chief Trish McIntyre on Wednesday. “The visibility of our members in and out of this office will no doubt displace crime. Will it prevent it? Not necessarily. But officer patrolling, being present, being visible, will hopefully deter crime from happening in the first place.”
The office was announced last year.
Chief Steve Williams, who is retiring and no longer actively in the role, said at the time that business owners and residents in the area had asked for an increased police presence.
“When you have a bustling downtown, people are going to work, going out for lunch, using the coffee shops, you see that activity and life in the downtown core. When all of that went away (at the beginning of the pandemic) the streets became very, very desolate,” said McIntyre. “We have criminal activity in the city of London. We have weapons, violent occurrences that we have not seen historically.”
The opening comes amid London police asking for more than 50 new officers to be hired as part of the city’s budget process.
“If you watched the meeting at council, the SPPC meeting, we spoke about violent crime in the city going up,” McIntyre said. “We can say very clearly we need to right size the number of officers that are doing the work they do. We have the lowest police officer per (capita) ratio.”
The store-front location near Dundas and Richmond has bike storage for officers who are out on cycle patrol, as well as spaces for Londoners to come in and report incidents to police.
The unit will be staffed by three supervisors and 19 front line officers.
