The Thunder Bay Police will be launching a Wanted Wednesday program on February 1, 2017 as part of a partnership with the public to help locate individuals in our community that have outstanding warrants.

As it stands right now, there are over 1,700 individuals with outstanding warrants in Thunder Bay. Warrants are either a Bench Warrants for a charged person who fails to show up for court OR a 1st Instance warrant for an offender who has breached a condition of release yet to be located and charged by police for an criminal incident. Many individuals wanted by police will go to great length and have supports in place to assist with evading the police. Locating these individuals is very resource intensive. Assistance from the media, social media and from the public could greatly assist with apprehension of these individuals.

The Wanted Wednesday Program is an investigative tool where on a weekly basis personal information including images of wanted adults is released to media sources in hopes to locate individuals and bring them before the courts to have the matter dealt with.

The main catalyst behind this initiative is to work on the behalf of victims to ensure they are safe and that they have justice and closure for a criminal act committed on them. A secondary factor is locating individuals who are known to be criminally active and help with the prevention of additional offences.

The TBPS will focus on individuals, who have warrants for violent offences, have failed to appear for court, are repeat offenders and/or believed to be criminally active. Information will be posted every Wednesday on www.thunderbaypolice.ca, forwarded to our media partner in a media release and shared to social media.

The public is encouraged to contact the police at 684-1200 with information on any of the individuals posted on the Wanted Wednesday page. Individuals who wish to remain anonymous are recommended to contact crime stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or www.tipsubmit.com.

Individuals with outstanding warrants are encouraged to attend the Balmoral Police Station before February 1, 2017 to deal with their warrants prior to this program starting.