The Sault Ste. Marie Police Service discussed preventative measures for intimate partner violence at yesterday’s meeting
The Sault Ste. Marie Police Service has followed up on nearly 1,100 calls for service from the public since launching its intimate partner violence project nearly two years ago.
Yesterday, members of the police services board heard the police service has initiated 14 investigations into allegations of intimate partner violence within that same time span, resulting in two IPV-related charges being laid since the project was first introduced.
Following Chief Brent Duguay’s update to board members, board chair Nuala Kenny asked him if any “preventative community efforts” can be made in light of the looming layoffs at Algoma Steel this March.
“There’s potentially so…
The Sault Ste. Marie Police Service discussed preventative measures for intimate partner violence at yesterday’s meeting
The Sault Ste. Marie Police Service has followed up on nearly 1,100 calls for service from the public since launching its intimate partner violence project nearly two years ago.
Yesterday, members of the police services board heard the police service has initiated 14 investigations into allegations of intimate partner violence within that same time span, resulting in two IPV-related charges being laid since the project was first introduced.
Following Chief Brent Duguay’s update to board members, board chair Nuala Kenny asked him if any “preventative community efforts” can be made in light of the looming layoffs at Algoma Steel this March.
“There’s potentially some opportunity to just double down again on providing the information about how to contact police and where some safe places are in the community,” Duguay said.
The Sault’s police chief added that some of the police service’s messaging around intimate partner violence has also been extended to individuals who are new to Canada.
“We’ve done some outreach with regards to what the rules and laws are here that may be different from some other countries in the world,” Duguay said.
Newly-appointed board vice-chair Amanda Williams suggested that having a police presence in schools and other safe spaces may provide children and youth with an opportunity to speak with police directly about IPV-related incidents.
“That might be one of those areas where we can get some of that upstream kind of education about why these actions are inappropriate,” Duguay responded.
The intimate partner violence project was launched in response to a horrific mass shooting in October 2023 that made headlines nationally.
It was announced by the police service on March 5, 2024 — the same day Sault Police revealed that murder victim Angie Sweeney phoned 911 from her Tancred Street address the day before she was murdered to report a verbal argument with ex-boyfriend Bobbie Hallaert.
She also informed the dispatcher that she had a physical altercation with him approximately two weeks earlier.
The evening after that 911 call, Hallaert killed Sweeney in her home before travelling to a Second Line East address where he killed his three children —Abbie, Ally and Nate Hallaert, age 12, 7 and 6 — before turning a gun on himself.
It’s now commonplace for Sault Police officers to follow up on IPV-related calls for service in which no charges are initially laid.
The police service reported a total of 1,524 IPV occurrences in 2024 — representing a 9.9 per cent increase over the previous year.
According to its latest numbers, Sault Police has fielded 1,442 IPV-related calls for service between January and November of 2025.
“We need as a society to start talking about how IPV is all our responsibility,” Duguay told reporters following yesterday’s police board meeting.
“Making it something that’s just not acceptable, I think it needs to start at a very early age.”
- with files from Kenneth Armstrong