CITY GETTING ANTI-GANG SQUAD

Red Deer city RCMP, concerned over growing gang activity in the city,
are creating a new Organized Crime Unit.

Funding for the new two-officer unit (OCU) is coming from the 2006
policing budget, which is being put forward to the city today.

As part of the city RCMP's overall plan to crack down on organized
crime, the detachment is also expanding its drug enforcement Street
Team from six members to eight.

Red Deer city RCMP Supt. Jim Steele said the OCU will work in
conjunction with not only the Street team but with the existing
Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) out of the 55 St. building.

Steele said there is no significant difference between the two units,
other than the CIU has a wider mandate around the area while the OCU
will target the city.

He said the OCU will generate strategic information for the Street
Team, and will be responsible for a portion of the tactical duties.

The OCU will also share intelligence information with police forces
from other centres.

The new OCU has been part of the city detachment's business plan for
the last few years and was identified as a key need for the city in
the Crime Prevention and Policing Study, which was completed after
extensive public input in 2004.

"The growth in the city has been phenomenal. It presents opportunity
for the entrepreneurs but also the criminals," said Steele, who hopes
to have the unit's team hired in April.

"We are seeing drug dealers coming from Edmonton and Calgary that are
associated to known organized crime outfits. It is time for us to
move in that direction."

Steele said Mounties have begun seeing organized crime operations
spreading their tentacles from the bigger cities to smaller centres.

"Stony Plain, Spruce Grove, Sherwood Park and Airdrie are noticing
that, and so are we," said Steele.

The Red Deer city RCMP detachment is a regular member police agency
of the Criminal Intelligence Service Alberta (CISA), which has a
mandate to facilitate the exchange of criminal intelligence between
law enforcement groups across the province and the rest of Canada.

CISA has identified outlaw motorcycle gangs, Asian-based groups,
aboriginal-based gangs, Eastern European-based groups and
Jamaican-based gangs as the province's main organized crime groups.

The Hell's Angels have a chapter in Red Deer, and all other organized
crime groups have at least established business contacts in the city.

Steele said all groups are being watched.

"Not necessarily because they are here but because they do some
business here," said Steele.

Meanwhile, city officials are already viewing the new OCU initiative
favourably, noting Red Deer's geographic location puts the city in a
vulnerable position to attract organized crime.

"A gang in Edmonton can meet with a gang in Calgary and meet in Red
Deer because of our location," said Colleen Jensen, director of the
city's community services department, which oversees policing in the city.

"As Edmonton and Calgary take a more aggressive approach to gang
activity then that gets pushed out and they go somewhere else for
activity," she added.

"Because of our location being so central I think it puts us in a
position where the opportunity is enhanced for gang activity here."