Police are turning to some innovative new approaches as they seek to apprehend individuals wanted for serious crimes.

The Toronto Police Service has announced that it will partner with the Stephan Crétier Foundation on a new initiative, in which the non-profit organization will help them get the word out about suspects wanted in homicides and other serious crimes. The plan is to use social media and other less conventional means, such as sending volunteers out into the communities that the suspects may be residing in, while wearing T-shirts with their names and photo printed on them.

The program has been dubbed BOLO, which is short for ‘be on the lookout.’

“We do have a presence on social media now, but our problem is reaching the greater mass,” Det. Sgt. Stacy Gallant told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday. “We don’t have the capacity to reach the amount of people that the BOLO program can.”

Gallant said that there are currently eight outstanding warrants for homicides that have taken place in the city over the last three years and a total of 27 warrants for suspects in homicides dating back to 1983.

He said that the idea behind the BOLO program is to focus on disseminating information about suspects that are thought to still reside in the Greater Toronto Area, more so than individuals that may have fled the city.

“We are targeting people that may know these individuals personally and may not in the past have wanted to call in or tell us where they are,” he said. “Hopefully this will put some pressure on those people that know them and know where they are.”

Two homicide suspects being sought as part of pilot

So far police have given officials with the BOLO program the names of two outstanding homicide suspects: Alexander Fountain, who is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Samatar Farah in Scarborough’s Chester Le neighbourhood in April 2017 and Tommy Ngo, who is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for the fatal stabbing of 23-year-old Russell Sahadeo in Noble Park in September 2015.

Maxime Langlois, who is the general manager of the Stephan Crétier Foundation, said that the plan is to use two different methods to get the word out about the suspects in order to determine which tools work best.

He said that his organization is exclusively using social media to solicit tips on Fountain’s whereabouts and have reached about 250,000 people on Facebook and Twitter over the last three weeks.

For Ngo, he said that volunteers will be sent into Toronto neighbourhoods wearing T-shirts with his mugshot and name printed on the front over “the next few days.” He said those volunteers will also be distributing flyers.

“We really are focused on developing our right tools now,” he said. “We want to make sure we are reaching people at the right time and at the right place. Social media is one of our tools but we have about 50 of them.”

Langlois said that the hope of the BOLO program is to eventually partner with police services across the country and form a list of 10 to 15 of Canada’s most wanted suspects.

He said that the program will only be used to “amplify” the message of police services and will not release information about suspects without full authorization.

“We will take information that is already publicly available, repackage it and then boost it to unprecedented levels,” he said.

Though the BOLO program is in its infancy, Gallant said that police have already received some tips that he said were a “direct result” of its existence.

“All we are looking for is that one tip that is going to lead to the arrest of one of the individuals,” he said.