The St. Vincent de Paul Society can’t seem to catch a break lately, as another theft at the store on King Street in Chatham has left them scrambling to replace over $5,000 worth of gear earmarked for Camp Vincent this summer.
SVDP particular council president Valerie Butterfield wrote a letter to the editor, frustrated with the ongoing thefts at the store from the donation bins and from vehicles on the property.
“The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul is a taxpaying charitable organization mandated to help the poor or disadvantaged members of our communities. Unfortunately, there are persons in our city that feel our store, truck and donation bins are theirs to pillage, steal from, mar and destroy,” Butterfield wrote. “On the evening/morning of June 7/8, our pickup and delivery truck parked in our lot at 80 King Str. E. was compromised. Taken were items donated to the store, and the supplies to go to Camp Vincent for the beginning of the camping season.
“Craft items (china tea cups and saucer, teapots, craft materials, fabric, clothing for the dress-up box, linens and more) were stolen. Also, our camp operation system was taken…walkie talkies and base system, camcorders, computer in its packaging, terabyte hard drives and boxes of other merchandise required to efficiently operate the children’s camp for the summer season.
“In total, this was a loss of over $5,000. If you are knowingly purchasing from these perpetrators, you are complicit.”
Butterfield said the thefts not only compromise the availability of assistance for area campers, but also children the camp serves from all over southern Ontario.
Another issue for Butterfield is, despite making changes to lighting and surveillance at the King Street location as suggested, the thefts continue with no assistance from the police.
“Although our local police service was called, we were unable to obtain an officer to come on site. An incident number was provided for insurance purposes. However, this is the third large theft in the last four months. Petty theft of our donation bin and ‘at-door’ donations happen daily. Lighting and surveillance has done little to deter the thefts. Even, trespassing violations have not stopped the repeated assault on our property,” Butterfield said. “Neighbours report of nightly occurrences of ‘grocery cart’ and ‘bicycle trailers’ thefts. It is obvious that the threat of police interference is not a deterrence to this behavior.”
The Chatham-Kent Police Service, when asked about the incident, said although the public might not see action taken, officers do look into each call.
“The Chatham-Kent Police Service takes all calls seriously including those reported over the phone or through our C.O.R.S. (Citizen On-Line Reporting System). This call was received and taken over the phone as a theft from a vehicle, without suspects and during an undetermined time over the last 12-plus hours,” said CKPS Deputy Police Chief Jeff Littlewood in a statement. “A police report was generated at that time. Internally, these reports are then viewed by our different bureaus and sections (including Street Crimes and Intelligence). If we have, or get, additional information leading us to a suspect, we act on that information.
“The CKPS treats all reported crimes as important, and there are often things that occur internally, like surveillance that people do not see,” Littlewood added.
“As always, we help our community members and partners by making ‘target hardening’ suggestions and using C.P.T.E.D. (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) concepts, which helps remove the opportunity for these occurrences to materialize. In addition, we publish regular media releases on our CKPS website and utilize Twitter and Facebook alerts on these issues. We seek witnesses and information through both public and private anonymous sources (Crime Stoppers). If anyone has any information about this or any crime we would appreciate a call and thank everyone for doing their part to help us solve crimes.”
