COPS EYE NEW UNIT

The Guelph Police Service wants to set up a rapid-enforcement team to
focus not only on drug activity in the city, but also on frequently
associated crimes such as break-ins, thefts and assaults.

This "floating" unit of four or five officers would be deployed where
it's needed, says Police Chief Rob Davis.

It could support not only Guelph Police's existing drug enforcement
team, but also property crime investigators, downtown police and
others. If a particular part of the city is hit by a high amount of
drug activity and "side offences" such as break-ins to homes and cars,
the team could be sent there.

"If you can address one, you can reduce other types of crime," because
they are often related, Davis said in an interview.

The Guelph Police Services Board has approved the concept, and it will
be sent to city council as a proposed expansion package in the city's
2007 budget.

"We don't know what we are going to call it yet," Davis said of the
team of experienced officers who would be "aggressive,
high-enforcement type people" with experience in surveillance,
investigations and more.

A couple of possibilities are calling it a "target team" or a "HEAT
team" - standing for High Enforcement Action Team.

A similar team has been effective in Hamilton, and Waterloo Region
also has one, he said.

As part of planning its business plan for the next three years, Guelph
Police Services repeatedly heard concerns about drug activity in the
city, including during a phone survey, community forums and through
e-mails from residents. "It is a concern for a lot of people," Davis
said.

Although Guelph has a low crime rate for an Ontario city its size,
"this sort of activity gives people the impression that crime is
running rampant."

Organized crime is involved in local drug activity, Davis said. "We
know organized crime is behind a lot of trafficking and hydroponic
growing in homes" of marijuana.

The four or five members for the rapid-enforcement team would be among
eight new police officers that Guelph Police hopes to get in 2007.

These eight include five officers whose salaries would be partly paid
by the province. Guelph already has 23 officers hired since 1998 under
a program where the province pays $35,000 a year towards the salary
and benefits of each officer, and five more would bring that to 28, he
said.

It's hoped the new recruits could be trained by the spring, so they'd
be ready to replace front-line officers who'd be shifted in April to
create the new rapid-enforcement unit, he said.

Davis said the police services board, as another part of its
three-year business plan, wants to start looking in 2007 at a
multifaceted approach to drug issues with partners in the community to
replace the current "hit-and-miss" approach.

Enforcement is only one aspect to dealing with the drug problem, he
said. Guelph Police can set up a rapid-enforcement team in the short
term, but in the longer term "a lot more players, and new ideas and
strategies" are needed.

"You can arrest people and put them in jail, but what do you do
after?"