IT'S LIKE SHINING A LIGHT ON COCKROACHES

Other cops describe Acting Det. Maurice Brodeur as a Labrador
retriever crossed with a pit bull. He's friendly and good natured,
but if he ever sinks his teeth into you, they're going clean through
to the bone.

In a single, nine-month stretch, Brodeur shut down 105 drug houses on
the south side. He's so proficient at it that in one case, all he had
to do was leave his Edmonton Police Service business card in the door
jamb of one home. Within a week the house was up for sale.

Police brass are so impressed with his results that they're
considering using Brodeur's technique all over the city. In fact,
he's been invited to speak next month at an international conference
in Madison, Wisconsin, put on by the Centre for Problem-Oriented Policing.

His approach is remarkably simple: Through any legal means necessary,
make it impossible for the drug trade to conduct business in the neighbourhood.

"I look at it this way: if you're going to make life miserable for
the people of Edmonton, I'm going to make life miserable for you," he says.

Typically, when cops receive a complaint of a drug house, before they
can do anything, they must gather enough evidence for a search
warrant. Then they raid the place and charge the suspects. It can be
a year before anyone sees the inside of a courtroom, and in the
meantime the dealer's out on bail, conducting business as usual.

He recalls one man who felt he was being forced out of the
neighbourhood where he'd lived his entire life. In fact, he still
lived in the house he'd grown up in. But the drug trade was taking
over and the area was in a downward skid.

"He said he couldn't do it anymore and was moving out," Brodeur
recalls. "That really made me angry. (Conventional tactics) failed this guy."

Brodeur works with landlords, health and fire inspectors, and even
animal-control officers to harass the dealers and customers into
giving up and leaving.

"It's like shining a light on cockroaches," he says. "They scatter
into the shadows. My goal is to get rid of all the shadows."

If charges are laid, great. But even if they aren't, order is
restored to the neighbourhood. Bottom line: taxpayers don't care
about arrest statistics. They just want to feel secure in their own
homes, to sleep undisturbed at night and to be able to go out of town
once in a while without worrying that their barbecue will be lifted
from the back deck while they're gone.

He argues that once a dealer's operation is disrupted, it takes time
to rebuild his business. If he keeps getting disrupted, eventually
he'll be run out of the business.

Once Brodeur drove his patrol car onto the curb in front of a drug
house run by a dealer he'd dealt with before and called out through
his vehicle's loudspeaker: "Frank, this is a crack house. Why haven't
you gone yet?"

Another time he worked with a landlord who was struggling to evict
dealers from his rental property.

"(The dealers) even called (the landlord) up, pretending to be the
tenants' lawyer, and threatened him with legal action," he says.

Brodeur saw through the ploy and responded with an intimidation
technique of his own. He showed up at one of the tenants' day jobs in
full uniform.

"I got one of her co-workers to point her out to me and walked over,"
he says with a grin of satisfaction. "She looked up and sheer terror
crossed her face. I gave a really friendly smile and whispered, 'Keep
smiling. Let them all think that we're friends. You're moving out,
right?' Her head bounced up and down and I left. They moved out right away."

Brodeur, who grew up in northern Alberta, has 18 years of police
experience, 13 in Edmonton and five in Winnipeg. Prior to that he
served in the army.

"I'm just a simple farm boy with a high-school education," he says.
"I just put myself in the citizens' shoes. Good cops have empathy."