North Bay Police Chief Scott Tod says there is no room for online vigilantes within the city of North Bay.
North Bay's top cop says he is aware of situations where frustrated victims of theft or vandalism have taken to social media to vent and even talk about what they would do to a thief if they caught them.
"The threat of violence is always concerning to me in our community," said Chief Tod.
"Fortunately enough, we do have enough citizens in our community who do send me those social media posts often and regularly. We do follow up on them."
Tod understands theft victims' frustration with the problem, but he feels taking the law into your own hands is not the solution.
"It is concerning that members of the public feel they have to resort to vigilantism in order to prevent crime from occurring in our community. But as mentioned, the sharing of information and the ability to provide our resources to those problems that have been identified - working with other partners in our community we can prevent crime from occurring."
Tod says prevention can be part of the solution too.
"We also, through the use of John Schultz and our community programming unit, can do a lot of work in regards to 'lock it or lose it' and doing better crime prevention and techniques around homes and small businesses across our city to prevent crime from occurring," he said.
Tod says there is a lot they can do as a service if they have the information provided to them.
"In regards to the specific threats of violence in our community, I would like to thank the citizens who come forward and warn us about the social media posts and it gives us ample time to deter any further violence from taking place in our community."
