'THESE PEOPLE DON'T CARE IF THEY SHOOT AT POLICE OFFICERS'

Ottawa Police Chief Reminds His Own Officers of Dangers That Await Them in
Drug Raids

In the moments after hearing that a gunman had allegedly ambushed and
killed four young RCMP officers in Alberta, Ottawa's police chief left
his third floor office at police headquarters and descended into the
bowels of the building to find the room with the sign "Tactical and
Explosives" on its door. Behind that door he found the specially
trained officers of his own tactical unit as they were getting ready
for an overnight shift.

Ottawa is one of the few police services in Canada that makes a policy
of using the tactical unit to execute all drug-related search
warrants, and Chief Vince Bevan wanted to remind his officers just how
risky their jobs can be, particularly when it comes to drug busts.
"There are dangerous situations going in and officers can never get
overconfident with them," he said yesterday. "I wanted to know if we
were doing any drug searches (Thursday night). I wanted to remind the
officers of the need to be mindful of the dangers and just to talk
about what had happened in Alberta.

"Many times, we've executed drug busts and found weapons or locations
booby-trapped and these people don't seem to care whether they shoot
at police officers or rival gangs. I just wanted to make sure our
officers were safe and remembered what they could be up against."

Chief Bevan has been as consistently outspoken against more lenient
marijuana laws as he has been in speaking in favour of tougher guns
laws and the need for a competent gun registry. And he pulls no
punches when it comes time to pinpoint who is to blame for the
killings in Alberta "This is a serious problem not being adequately
dealt with by Parliament. Through sentencing and legislation, we are
not treating grow-ops seriously."

He describes the grow-ops as "plague" that has in the last four years
spread from British Columbia across the Rocky Mountains and into
Ontario and Quebec.

Ottawa's drug unit has been vigilant in hunting down marijuana grow
operations. That was evident last April when it helped break up one of
the largest international marijuana distribution and money-laundering
networks to operate out of Ottawa. The network had ties to Vietnam and
elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Project Codi was so large that several police agencies in both Canada
and the United States worked more than two years to finally deliver
the knockout blow in a rapid-fire series of raids on houses and
businesses throughout Ottawa. Those raids were co-ordinated with
others in Toronto, Montreal and 12 states in the United States. More
than 400 police officers were involved, executing 32 search warrants
in the Ottawa area alone. They nabbed more than 20 people associated
with the large network, including its alleged ring-leaders.

Tactical officers went from location to location, breaking into homes
that had been turned into grow-ops. No one was hurt. That may have a
great deal to do with the fact that unlike other city police forces
that use their own drug units to execute warrants, Ottawa's policy for
the past six years has been to use tactical officers in the operations.

"Colleagues have questioned why we do it that way and it's because we
have encountered shotguns rigged to blow up if someone enters or
electrical booby-traps hidden in mats," said Chief Bevan. "It's a
result of lessons learned and that's why our officers are trained to
the level they are.

"These are dangerous situations going in. The ties to organized crime
have been clearly demonstrated and Project Codi was a strong indicator
of how serious a problem there was in our area."

Chief Bevan said he received a sketchy bulletin on the shooting in
Alberta at 2:44 Thursday afternoon and immediately placed a call to A
Division assistant commissioner Ghyslaine Clement. Through the next
few hours, a number of phone calls were exchanged between the two. At
the same time, he flipped back and forth through the news channels,
following a story no police officer wants to see.

It soon became apparent there would be no good ending to the events in
Alberta. By 6 p.m., he'd ordered an internal e-mail advising the
police service and its civilian members of the details of the tragedy.
He also sent a message to RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, who
he considers a close friend, and with heavy heart made good on a
promise to attend a charity event Thursday evening, though he snuck
out to watch the televised press conferences by the RCMP commissioner
and Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan.

"As a police leader, you would dread to ever be in that situation and
my thoughts go out to

(assistant commissioner) Bill Sweeney (Alberta's senior RCMP officer)
and the commissioner. Our people go out every day and try to do a good
job. But you never know. One can only imagine how difficult a time
this is for them and their people."

Chief Bevan said he has already heard from a number of Ottawa police
officers who wish to pay their respects and attend funerals of the
four officers. He will be among them.