Toronto Taxi Security Cameras Prove Their Effectiveness
Toronto, Ontario October 24, 2009
Shortly after 11 a.m. two Thursdays ago, cabbie Anthony Chester was dispatched to a housing complex on Dundas St. W., near Scarlett Rd.
There, he picked up a twentysomething man who asked him to drive to Lynnhaven Rd. and Rondale Blvd., near Bathurst St. and Lawrence Ave. W.
When they arrived, the man pulled out a gun, put it to Chester's head and demanded all of his money – about $80 in cash – and his cellphone.
The 54-year-old cabbie handed it over and the man fled.
Over the next five days, four more cabbies were robbed by a man using a similar style.
In a major city, these might not seem like unusual occurrences.
Except that in Toronto, armed robberies of cabbies hardly ever happen.
The reason these offences are rare, cabbies and police agree, is the security cameras installed above, or to the side of, the taxis' rear-view mirrors - see picture above.
Since the city decided to make it mandatory for taxi companies to install the cameras in all their cabs nearly a decade ago, robbery incidents have fallen sharply.
In the two years before this month's rash of cab robberies, Const. Tony Vella found four violent incidents in a police database.
He couldn't think of any recent spree of robberies before this month.
"With the security cameras in place that's a deterrent, and it works well," Vella says.
Larry Labovitch, owner of Kingsboro Taxi, confirmed that one of his cabbies was hit during this month's spree but he was hard-pressed to think of another recent robbery.
He added that GPS systems are also an effective tool – a cabbie can push a distress button, alerting a dispatcher who can direct police to the cab using the tracking device.
The cameras haven't completely stopped the violence.
In a span of less than eight months in 2005 and 2006, two cab drivers were murdered on the job and, in August 2008, a driver was severely beaten by two men.
In all three cases, cameras captured images of the suspects.
Officers with the 32 Division street crime unit, which investigated the most recent robberies, said a taxi camera was also instrumental in cracking this case.
"They got all the pictures of the man pointing the gun to his head," said Kuldip Khabra, Chester's boss at City Taxi.
On Oct. 14, police charged Michael Shane Walker, 21, of Toronto with four counts of robbery while armed with a firearm, and two counts of breaking a probation order.
Most importantly, none of the cabbies was hurt.
