POLICE JOIN FORCES FOR SKYTRAIN CRACKDOWN

While officers from Burnaby and Surrey RCMP and New West police go
undercover to chase criminals on the transit system, they're staying out of
Vancouver until city police join their ranks.

Surrey and Burnaby RCMP and New Westminster police have begun to crack down
on SkyTrain drug-trafficking, putting undercover officers on trains and
crossing jurisdictional boundaries.

But the Vancouver Police Department has yet to come on board the so-called
joint task force.

Burnaby and Surrey RCMP detachments said they have members riding trains
and patrolling stations. While they wouldn't say how many officers are
involved - for security reasons - they did confirm there have been some
arrests.

New Westminster police are believed to have joined the task force, though
no one from the department was available to confirm that information on
Tuesday.

The Burnaby, Surrey and New Westminster officers will stop short of
Vancouver's borders.

Vancouver police media liaison Constable Anne Drennan said the department
has not yet allocated officers or resources to the force, but does support
the idea.

She said the department is still working on how to approach the problem and
is focusing on Vancouver stations, primarily the Broadway station at the
corner of Commercial.

Drennan said Vancouver officers probably will ride the line between
jurisdictions, in the same way as their counterparts in other municipalities.

Mayor Philip Owen, chairman of the Vancouver police board, said the city is
committed to solving the drug problems at SkyTrain stations and he is in
favour of the joint task force. But at this stage the city is not ready to
be involved.

"If a couple of municipalities want to start something on their own right
now then they're entitled to do that," Owen said. "We're supportive of it,
but it's just going to take some time to work it out."

Last Thursday, eight people were arrested - six for trafficking and two for
possession - when Burnaby and Surrey RCMP teamed up with New Westminster
officers, said Constable Philip Reid, media liaison for Burnaby RCMP.

Reid said this coordination between law enforcement agencies will be
carried out only periodically for now, with the potential for regular
patrols in the new year. He said an assessment will need to be done to
decide how to best distribute the high number of officers involved.

There is some sort of illegal activity going on every day near the SkyTrain
stations, Reid said, and police will have to fine-tune their collective
method of dealing with it.

"The community is quite concerned about safety at SkyTrain stations," Reid
said. "We're responding to that by going out to the different stations."

Reid could not confirm whether any arrests had been made aboard the trains,
though he said there is no reason why they couldn't be.

Reid said of Vancouver's delay in joining the task force: "They're doing
their own thing for now. But we do expect them to participate later in the
year, possibly mid-to late-January or early February."

Reid said only undercover officers will work the line for now, with a
switch to uniformed members sometime in the New Year.

The rationale behind the joint task force was developed through a series of
meetings held in November and December between the four law-enforcement
agencies as well as TransLink and civic officials.

A Nov. 23 report from the attorney-general's office has also recommended
the idea of an armed SkyTrain police force unrelated to the joint task
force.