GROW OPS ALWAYS A RISK FOR POLICE OFFICERS

It could easily have happened in the Tri-Cities: four RCMP officers shot
dead as they guarded a marijuana grow operation at a rural residence.

But the grow-op bust that saw the worst multiple killing of Mounties
since the 1885 Northwest Rebellion wasn't in Coquitlam or Port
Coquitlam, it was in Mayerthorpe, Alta.

Still, there is always risk in the Tri-Cities, where discovery of
marijuana grow ops is almost a daily occurrence.

The Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET), which was formed in September
2004, has found suspects holed up in crawl spaces, bathrooms and
furnace rooms, sometimes brandishing weapons.

More often than not, officers find weapons during a grow-op bust, many
of them illegal and used by cultivators to protect their investment.

The risks from electricity theft, booby traps, explosions and a host
of other things can await police.

Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Jane Baptista said officers busting grow ops have
a list of things they look for, but there's always the unknown.

"Every day we go to work we know there's that possibility ... but it's
always a shock if something happens. I mean, it's like having one of
your family members go," she said.

Flags will be at half-mast at the Coquitlam RCMP detachment until the
funerals for Const. Peter Christopher Schiemann, 25; Const. Anthony
Fitzgerald Orion Gordon, 28; Const. Lionide Nicholas Johnston, 32; and
Const. Brock Warren Myrol, 29.

"We need to get them (grow ops) out of here," MET's Cpl. Daniel Pons
told The NOW in December, gesturing to some neighbourhood children
playing ball hockey near a busted grow op. "You can't tell me there's
not a risk here."

Pons also said the team is investigating a number of grow ops on
Westwood Plateau, all of which they suspect are related to organized
crime.

A May 2002 report by University College of the Fraser Valley professor
Darryl Plecas states that generally speaking, marijuana growing
operations coming to the attention of the police are increasing in
number by an average of 36-per-cent per year, increasing in average
size at a rate of 40-per-cent per year.

Overall, for the period between 1997 and 2000, police seized 1.2
million marijuana plants and 8,646 kilograms of harvested marijuana in
B.C. The value of the marijuana seized is estimated at between $462
million and $1.25 billion. The average dollar value per operation,
which consisted of 166 live plants and 3.7 kilograms of harvested
plants, is estimated to be somewhere between $100,000 and $130,000.

This year alone the Coquitlam RCMP detachment reported uncovering 42
grow ops, not including the 28 active and inactive grow ops discovered
in a Cape Horn townhouse complex last week.

In 2004, the RCMP busted 302 marijuana grow ops in Coquitlam - a
28-per-cent increase over the year before - and 82 in Port Coquitlam,
a five-per-cent increase.

During its first four months, the MET busted more than 30 grow ops in
Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam.

These numbers prompted Port Coquitlam city council to forward a
resolution to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to lobby
Justice Minister and Attorney General Irwin Cotler to increase the
legal consequences of having a grow operation.

Attorney General Geoff Plant told The NOW in February that he and
Solicitor General Rich Coleman have been working "awfully hard" to try
to persuade the federal government to increase the penalties for grow
operations in the criminal law.

"I think that if we want tougher sentences for grow ops from the
courts, we have to change the law and give the courts the tools to
impose tougher sentences," Plant said.

Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan promised Thursday to take another
look at the proposed marijuana decriminalization bill.

"Clearly (Justice) Minister Cotler and I will want to take a look at
whether we have the right resources being used in the right ways and
whether we have the right laws. Have we given the RCMP and other
forces the right tools they need to deal with what is an amazing
growth, quite truthfully, in these operations."

Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam MP James Moore would say
No.

"I think the tragedy that we saw in Alberta should be a wake-up call
to all public policy makers from city councils right all the way up to
the prime minster of Canada that our laws against marijuana grow ops
simply aren't working," Moore said.

And Moore, who was in Ottawa observing the Liberal policy convention
Friday, said the Liberals seem to be going in the wrong direction. He
said the deaths were the topic of conversation at the convention, but
that he's heard many Liberal MPs using the tragedy as an argument for
legalizing marijuana.

"Whether drugs are criminalized or decriminalized, the fact is that
these are career thugs and if they're not involved in the drug trade
they'll be involved in some other aspect of organized crime."

Moore said he plans to keep lobbying the Liberals for tougher
penalties, a mandatory two-year minimum for being convicted of housing
a grow op and more money for the RCMP.

"I think people in the Tri-Cities have had enough."

Baptista said the issues are big, but there is a more important
point.

"The big thing is that four people have lost their lives and their
families (have) to deal with it. They go out there every day to do
their job, trying to help their community be safer and it's pretty
harsh and disturbing when things like this happen," she said. "It
really hits you right to the core."