PENALIZE THE GUILTY

Members of the joint city, OPP, Kawartha Drug Unit play various roles in
our communities from protecting us to crime and traffic prevention, being
there when we need them. Criminals make their job difficult and put their
lives most at risk.

An incident last week inside the city, on a heavily populated residential
street brings this to our attention most recently.

Police raided a house in a quiet neighbourhood to find a massive marijuana
operation in the basement, just steps from a school yard.

Neighbours were unaware what was going on in that home on the nice, quiet
Westbrook Drive home. For the most part the residents are working people
with families, but inside this house there was only a mattress and a
basement full of growing marijuana plants.

There was $500,000 worth of plants inside the house.

Police had to work carefully, they know the dangers these drug raids
create. They don't know the enemy but have to believe the worst may be
behind those doors.

You can't just knock and say hello. Police rammed the doors with guns drawn.

Their own families, most of them city residents living on quiet residential
streets just like this one. Their families would have no idea of the danger
they put themselves in on that day, but they know every day anything can
happen.

One resident, Murray Henderson realized the danger these criminals put the
neighbourhood in. "There are a lot of kids around here, that's what scares
me. What if a kid was poking his nose around just for fun and didn't know
anything, and they catch him? You never know what they'd do.".

The house is near St. Teresa's School and Westmount Public School