MARIJUANA GROW-OP 'DANGER IS SERIOUS'

'Sadness Being Felt In The Police Community Across Canada,' Chief Says

SYDNEY - The murder of four RCMP officers in northern Alberta Thursday has
left a pall of sadness across the country, says the nation's top police chief.

Chief Edgar MacLeod, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of
Police, said the killings show the serious dangers associated with police
enforcement, especially when dealing with highly organized, illegal drug
operations.

He said it's time the nation woke up and imposed tougher penalties on those
involved in marijuana grow operations and for legislatures to provide more
funding to police forces so they can do their job more effectively and safely.

"There's a sense of sadness being felt in the police community across
Canada," he said Friday from Ottawa.

Around Nova Scotia, all provincial, federal and RCMP flags few at half-mast
Friday.

Flags at RCMP detachments will fly that way until sunset on the day the
last funeral is held, said RCMP spokesman Const. Gary Smith.

About 100 RCMP officers and staff attended a prayer service at the Halifax
headquarters at noon Friday.

Led by RCMP chaplain Rev. Lloyd O'Neill, the service was held to help
officers deal with their grief, Const. Smith said.

A public memorial service will be held 2 p.m. Monday at St. Agnes Church on
Mumford Road in Halifax to honour the officers who were killed Thursday,
Const. Smith said.

Referring to the killings as a national tragedy, Const. Smith said the
deaths are overwhelming for many on the force, particularly for some young
officers posted in Halifax who had trained with the slain constables.

"For them, it's an even more personal loss," he said.

"These grow-ops are big, big business with lots of illegal money involved
and lots of stakes involved," said Chief MacLeod, who also heads the Cape
Breton Regional Police.

"The sense of danger is serious and the country needs to come to grips with
it. . . . It's time governments . . . put in place more serious penalties."

Chief MacLeod also extended his sincere condolences to the families and
fellow officers, especially to the RCMP detachment overseeing Rochfort
Bridge, 130 kilometres north of Edmonton where the shootings occurred.

"I can only imagine what they are going through losing these officers."

On Thursday, a lone shooter with a high-powered rifle gunned down four RCMP
officers when they approached a grow-op in the small rural community of 60.

Last year, the association of police chiefs warned that Asian, Italian,
Russian, and European gangs were expanding out of Canada's major cities
into smaller rural areas to traffic in drugs, sex, stolen luxury vehicles
and stolen identity documents.

RCMP Sgt. Ken McKinnon, head of drug enforcement in Cape Breton, says
organized crime is alive and well in this province too, and a similar
tragedy could easily happen anywhere in Nova Scotia.

"There's not too many days organized crime doesn't reach into your pocket,"
he said. "Things as simple as those ATMs in bars, and I'm not saying all of
them, but some are used to launder money . . . and it's next to impossible
to track.

"We see the tragedies take place and most never think it could happen here
. . . but small towns . . . that's exactly where things like this do happen."

Grow-ops are often booby-trapped, he said, and high-powered rifles are
used, usually not to keep police at bay, but to protect illegal crops from
being stolen by rival gangs.

He said one thing that will make a big difference is for people to take
note of anything unusual in their neighbourhoods and report it to police,
even anonymously.

"You have a better idea of something suspicious in your neighbourhood,
better than police," he said.