'IT'S UNBELIEVABLE HOW BAD THE STREET-LEVEL DRUG PROBLEM IS'

Street Crime Unit Kicks Off With Sweep of Dealers

For a solid hour on Saturday afternoon, Project Street Sweep zeroes in
on its targets: street-level drug dealers working city streets,
selling single rocks of crack cocaine for $20 a hit.

Most of the arrests take place in the ByWard Market area, with the
police radio rhyming off the intersections.

In each case, plainclothes police and uniforms identify the dealers,
then swoop in to make the arrests.

"It's unbelievable how bad the street-level drug problem is," Staff
Sgt. Samir Bhatnagar, a senior officer with the newly formed
10-member Street Crime Unit, says. "It's mindboggling how prevalent it
is right now."

In its first month on the job, his Street Crime Unit has identified
more than 50 dealers that they plan to take off the streets.

Police know each of their targets by face and have been gathering
information about them during their investigations for Project Street
Sweep.

"Ten down, 52 to go," says an officer over the radio.

After the first 10 takedowns, the arrests start to dry up for the
police as the dealers catch wind of what is going on.

But police know where they hang out: shelters and soup kitchens,
intersections along major streets like Montreal Road and Rideau
Street, as well as back alleys and parking lots.

Staff Sgt. Bhatnagar says he expects they will be back within 45
minutes, as soon as police are out of sight. Sure enough, he is right.

But the police are back and the busts start up again. Two young men
are arrested on Rideau Street, in the parking lot behind a UPS Store.

Police have been waiting for them for some time, unsure when they
would arrive. Dealers, as Staff Sgt. Bhatnagar puts it, are
"notoriously unreliable" and are often late when meeting clients.

The pair are handcuffed and placed in cruisers that have blocked their
only escape. One is insistent that he has not been dealing, the other
stays silent.

Both are heading for jail.

As of Sunday night, about 20 arrests have been made, but the massive
snow storm will force police to spend extra time this week to collect
the other suspects.

With the number of arrests that are expected, Staff Sgt. Bhatnagar
says he expects "a good majority" of the city's street-level dealers
will be in custody.

But when the drug dealers are in jail, what happens to the people who
are looking for crack when it is nowhere to be found?

"That's the million-dollar question," Staff Sgt. Bhatnagar says.
"We'll have to wait and see."

Police know many of the dealers themselves are addicted, needy and
willing to do whatever it takes to support their habits - whether
selling or stealing to get the cash they need for their next fix.

"As soon as they can come up with $20, they are buying," says Staff
Sgt. Bhatnagar.

Many of the dealers, he says, live out on the streets, in flophouses,
or in shelters.

"The panhandlers, the beggars, they are getting addicted," he says,
pointing out a wiry man pestering people for money in a ByWard Market
parking lot.

While crack is causing the most problems, it is not the only drug for
sale on the street. Staff. Sgt. Bhatnagar lists marijuana,
pharmaceutical drugs and painkillers among the street inventory.

And he can point directly to those who are using.

In the neighbourhoods of Centretown, Vanier, the outskirts of the
ByWard Market and Hintonburg, people are selling and buying crack, and
even using right out in the open.

Staff Sgt. Bhatnagar says police officers routinely see users smoking
crack in public areas and in places where they are sure to be caught.

Several years ago, he caught a woman smoking crack on the roof of the
Rideau Centre during her lunchbreak. She was a mother and was in the
early stages of her addiction, having got hooked on crack after
starting to use it on a day when her dealer had run out of marijuana
to sell.