POLICE MEETING REVEALS COST OF RENTING HOME TO CRIMINALS COULD BE HIGH

Dave Munro Learned Something New About Covert Police Work Monday.

The Bedford homeowner was surprised to learn that a person's home
could be placed under police surveillance without his knowledge.

This is exactly what happened at Mr. Munro's home two or three years
ago when he rented it out to two men while vacationing in Florida for
the winter.

It turned out the men used the home as marijuana grow operation and
Halifax Regional Police had put it under surveillance.

"Shortly after I left . . . one of the neighbours noticed something
wrong, informed the police and a surveillance system was set up," Mr.
Munro told a Halifax Regional Police town hall meeting Monday night in Bedford.

Upon his return, Mr. Munro learned from a neighbour that a grow
operation had been set up in the house. He came home to changed locks
and about $70,000 damage inside the home.

The perpetrators, Mr. Munro said after the meeting, walked away
without being charged and with all of their drug paraphernalia.

"I wonder if this same scenario would still be true today, that is
would the police set up surveillance without telling the owner and
let the perpetrators possibly walk away and thereby sacrificing the
home to a possible bust," Mr. Munro asked Chief Frank Beazley.

Chief Beazley said police indeed do surveillance without telling the
owners "because we wouldn't know or would have no way of knowing
whether you're part of the operation or not.

"So we would set up surveillance, we would try to gather evidence to
execute the search warrant and go in and deal with those type of issues."

Chief Beazley was unfamiliar with Mr. Munro's case and therefore
couldn't elaborate on it.

"But we have people that buy houses and nice homes and they buy them
for the whole purpose of marijuana grow operations."

Mr. Munro was one of about 80 residents who attended the meeting.

Mr. Munro, who now lives in Enfield but still owns another home in
Bedford, rented his first house through what he thought was a
reputable rental agency.

After the meeting, Mr. Munro said he had "absolutely no idea" that
his renters were criminals.

Residents came to the meeting with a number of complaints and
questions. Vehicles speeding on Hammonds Plains Road and in school
zones, break-ins, graffiti and underage drinking were addressed.

One resident asked whether some areas of Bedford were experiencing an
increase in violent crime.

"I did hear about a kid swarming the other night, a swarming incident
out here, which I had never heard of before," the man said. "I
wondered if there was more of that going on."

Chief Beazley responded that he doesn't believe that's the case. But
he said there's been a slow increase in violent crime in HRM that's
proportionate to an increase in the population.

"But that doesn't make you feel any more comfortable," the chief
said. "A lot of what you've seen, I'd say from June up until now, is
different groups that have some sort of dispute with each other,
whether it be over drugs (or other issues). . . . That's the stuff
you've read about in Spryfield, Fairview, north-end Dartmouth and the
southern end of Dartmouth. These people, from what we can tell, knew
each other."

In every one of those incidents, the chief said, people have been
charged and are before the courts.

The next Halifax Regional Police town hall meeting will be held
Wednesday at St. James Anglican Church, 2668 Joseph Howe Dr. in Halifax.