IS IT A WELCOME-BACK PRESENT FOR THE NEW POLICE CHIEF?

Coincidence? Either Way, Nearly 30 Drug Dealers Are Off the Streets
at Least for a Day

In case you just made it in from Kelowna, there's a new sheriff coming
to town.

Oh, we know this crackdown on the crack dealers doing their dirt in
the shadow of the Cecil Hotel wasn't just some overnight stunt.

But cops collar 29 goofs on 81 charges, execute 70 outstanding
warrants and the hard work of our constabulary rolls out just 49 hours
after city council names Rick Hanson as Calgary's top cop and 48 hours
and 55 minutes after the soon-to-be chief uttered the tough words:
"People have to feel they're safe and we have to put people in jail.
Am I soft on crime? Absolutely not."

Yes, if the police want to get a no-nonsense message out to the
public, if someone is actually trying to send a signal to citizens who
are fed up with the lawbreaking lowlifes who flock to this city, the
timing couldn't be better.

Up at city police HQ, the two deputy chiefs, Peter Davison with the
uniforms and Dean Young with the detectives, talk as crime fighters
are supposed to talk. Tough.

Yes, the Dynamic Duo do remind us of the usual scandal in our
courts.

The cops can arrest those on the bad side of the street but the idiots
don't often stay in jail. The courts do not even apply what already
exists in the law. On this operation, of the 29 individuals
handcuffed, 20 have prior convictions. One accused has 160 ... read
that again ... 160 Criminal Code convictions.

Another piece of work is out on probation facing an assault-with-a
weapon beef and his release was based on ... you guessed right ... no
conditions. So what's new?

These individuals and many other chronic criminals walk around knowing
our so-called justice system makes The Breakfast Club look like hard
time, smirking all the way as they play us for the patsies we've become.

The deputy chiefs also point out the police on their own can't find
all the poor people houses or get every addict off crack or play
Sigmund Freud to all those needing to have their upstairs furniture
rearranged. The population can't just sit back or look the other way,
dissing the disorder, not pushing the politicians to do more and then
somehow expect an effortless happy ending like at the end of every
well-worn TV cop show script.

But the brass do not whine or pass the buck. Davison says the badges
on the beat will do the best they can. There will be a highly visible
uniform presence. There will be law enforcement. Hot spots will be
attacked.

Sounds a lot like the pledge of the new police chief to do whatever is
necessary to make this a safe city.

"This is a real indicator of the type of results we can achieve, "
says Davison of the busts. "We will continue to ramp this up."

It's not hot air. Remember Davison is the guy willing to take on those
looking to turn the Red Mile into the Rude Mile. Along with Insp. Bob
Ritchie and the fine officers of District 1, he was also behind
tangling with the thugs on the river pathway.

Deputy Chief Dean Young doesn't mind offering a few words and what he
says is right up the alley of everybody this page knows. Where have
the police PR types been hiding this guy?

"We're citizens, too. Does this make me mad? Absolutely," says Young,
of all the unlawful crud we see going on under our noses.

"This is about taking back the streets and the citizens of Calgary own
the streets."

Speak the word.

"We can't be everything to everybody. But we can do what is really
important.

"When people are afraid to walk the streets, do we focus on jaywalking
or do we focus on the robberies, the drug trafficking, the assaults?"

Young doesn't "want people sticking their heads in the sand." Crime
doesn't end downtown. Addicts need cash for drugs. And it's only an
LRT ride away to the supposed safety of the suburbs where the comfy
and complacent become the prey for the predators.

Just wait until it's your house broken into or your vehicle
stolen.

It's like the old rule of war. You can fight them somewhere else or
fight them when they come to your turf.

Young says what the police are doing now is "an evolution not a
revolution."

Whatever it is, it's happening as irritation about crime and gangs and
drugs rises, after the summer of our discontent, when big crime
stories just would not go away and neither would the ne'er do wells
before our eyes.

"We're not stopping," says the deputy chief.

"This is our city as much as your city. There are more arrests to
come."

Hope you folks at the HQ can see the thumbs up.