COPS TAKE ON CROOKS IN ALDERGROVE

Langley's top cop says criminals in the Aldergrove community are
being lined up like ducks in a carnival shooting gallery.

While Langley RCMP Superintendent Janice Armstrong didn't use those
exact words, she says the groundwork has been done to identify the
criminal element in this area and a new Aldergrove "core enforcement
team" of specially-hired officers will soon target the crooks.

"Criminals are kind of lazy," Armstrong observed in her presentation
to Aldergrove residents at Thursday evening's Business Link meeting.

Typically, car thieves won't walk more than a few blocks when they
steal a car or drop off a car after using it, said Armstrong. This
has enabled RCMP to identify the area of Aldergrove in which these
car thieves reside, and the next step will be to arrest and charge them.

The core enforcement team positions for Aldergrove are currently
posted at RCMP headquarters and the competition closes shortly. The
two officers who are selected for the job will then follow up on the
work investigators, including the two community safety officers, have done.

"They will be strictly enforcement, working in tandem with the
community safety officers," said Armstrong.

"They will target prolific offenders, drug dealers" and the like.

This initiative, which is already underway in Langley City, was just
one of the subjects Armstrong covered in her in-depth presentation to
the audience at the Business Link meeting, which included Mayor Rick Green.

She also introduced the new Aldergrove Community Policing Office
coordinator, Jan Drapeau, to the audience. Drapeau, a former
dispatcher and 911 operator, has just taken over the job following
former coordinator Kim Pedersen's move to the Langley RCMP Victim
Services unit.

Drapeau, a proud Aldergrove resident, said, "I'm very excited and
hope to do lots of things with our volunteers to focus on problem areas here."

Armstrong said the Aldergrove policing zone - between 276 and 232
Streets and the US border to Hwy. 1 - is the largest in Langley and
the geographic size does present its own challenges. However, she
said the crime rate in this zone is not out of line with the other
four zones, and in fact has been declining, due to several reasons.

One of the reasons has been a multi-pronged approach by police, which
includes the probation checks that have resulted in "lots of success
breaching" reprobates for not abiding probation curfews.

Another new initiative is the Langley RCMP website
(www.langley.rcmp.ca) which allows the public to view policing
statistics, news releases, crime maps and the current most wanted
list and photos of those with outstanding warrants against them.

"We want you to look at them and if you see them in your area, call
us right away," said Armstrong.

Armstrong is also hopeful that the "public safety team" which
inspects suspicious residences to weed out marijuana grow-ops will
soon be reinstated.

"We're working to get that back up and running. We started it in
Aldergrove and inspected over 200 homes, and in 98 per cent of them
we found evidence of a grow-op," said Armstrong.

Grow-ops frequently have organized crime or gang connections, which
translates into a public safety hazard. One of last month's "gang
shootings" was in the Aldergrove area, when a "grow-rip" involved a
man being shot at a grow-op on Huntingdon Road near Aldergrove Lake Park.