CLEANING UP THE COCAINE CORRIDOR HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RACISM

The cry is going up. Police are targeting poverty-stricken Hondurans.
Activists are upset.

The last three months we've given them reason to be.

Operation Cleansweep has been running in Vancouver's downtown core,
confronting a scourge of crack and meth dealers.

Is it our fault they're Honduran refugees?

Apparently, yes. Our reclamation project is just more VPD hatred of the
poor, we're told, more of the same "policing by the rich for the rich."

No matter that regular folk were the ones demanding action.

The "cocaine corridor" is populated by students, office workers, business
people and transit customers. The area -- Seymour (Pender to Georgia),
Richards (Dunsmuir to Pender) and lanes between -- was in a frightful state.

Honduran drug dealers had taken over. People waiting for buses were being
harassed.

Business people faced threats. Anyone standing up to the dealers had
windows broken or lives threatened.

Their boldness was based in a belief that police in Canada are helpless,
that political correctness here makes refugee status an overwhelming trump
card.

Their mistake was to confuse being overworked with being powerless.

It's true we can't do everything, but we do some things very well. Our
Granville beat crews turned attention to the problem. Our district's target
team broke free from surveilling the area's property criminals.

These, it's worth mentioning, are the dozens of thieves who work non-stop
to pay for the dope. Check any downtown parking lot: Each spray of broken
glass is a vehicle ransacked. Good luck, goes the adage, leaving a car down
here with anything more than garbage in sight.

Operation Cleansweep is not an exercise in racism.

Our approach is a system of behavioural rather than racial or ethnic
profiling. Anyone selling dope is a legitimate target.

I hinted in a prior column that we'd be making things miserable for these
guys. And here's how miserable it's become.

Twenty-five crack and meth drug dealers were arrested in the target area
during the last 90 days. Every one we found was a Honduran refugee.

They're awaiting trial as you read this, most with conditions to stay out
of the downtown core. I doubt they'll be suffering in the interim. These
characters are anything but poverty-stricken.

Between the welfare money and the drug profits, they can relax in pampered
comfort. That said, we'll avoid relaxation at the police end of this. The
problem will return the moment we flinch.

Our target team has a hard time finding dealers at the moment. The cocaine
corridor looks to be in pretty good shape.

I'd very much like to hear from people in the area, to see if police
perceptions are matched by those on the street. Please drop a line, at the
address below.