COPS TO BEEF UP PRESENCE ON NORTH SHORE

Kamloops RCMP have decided to increase patrols in the Tranquille Road
area following a fatal stabbing over the weekend, the latest act of
violence in the area this summer.

The police response comes after 21-year-old Devin Prince was killed
early Saturday in Kamloops' first homicide of 2007.

"You'll see an increase in police presence on the North Shore," said
Kamloops RCMP Insp. Yves Lacasse.

"We want the public to know we're dealing with it. We're alive to the
issues."

Prince's death is the latest in a rash of violence in the area, which
has some residents fearing for their safety and confined to their homes.

Saturday's murder is the area's third stabbing in two
months.

Paramedics arrived at 240 Royal Ave. Saturday at 4:20 a.m., responding
to 911 call reporting a stabbing.

They found Prince, who Const. Scott Wilson said was known to police in
a "drug capacity," lying unconscious on the street and bleeding
profusely from his wounds.

Prince died on arrival to Royal Inland Hospital.

A 27-year-old female witness identified the suspect, who police later
tracked to a nearby apartment building.

Police arrested Michael Paul Dick, 46, acting on a search warrant on
his apartment.

Dick has been a resident of the apartment building for 15 years. He is
not known to police.

"We haven't had any negative dealings with the suspect," Wilson said,
adding there is a "possibility" Dick and Prince knew each other.

Still, the motive remained unclear.

Mounties also recovered the knife used to kill Prince, but declined to
describe it, noting the make is part of an on-going police
investigation.

Dick was scheduled to appear before a provincial court judge in
Kamloops Monday on a charge of second-degree murder, on the same day
an autopsy was planned for Prince's body.

Lacasse also said Monday two officers will be added to the city's drug
unit next month.

He said the new officers give Kamloops police "the opportunity to be
more proactive and take on more investigations."

The new officers will work with members of the C.A.R.T. team, who deal
with 46 prolific offenders known to Kamloops police, and officers from
the property crime division.

They will form a team of 15 officers, who will work to lower
drug-related crimes in Kamloops.

Which, Lacasse said, are "on the rise" in Kamloops, noting they
increased by 76 per over the last two years in the city.

Wilson called the "spike" in violence on the 200-block of Tranquil
Road part of a "bad cycle.

"Why the volume and frequency we don't know," he said.

Lacasse said the incidents were "just not preventable."

Prince's murder is the first of 2007, coming on the heels of three
murders in the last three months of 2006.

The unsolved murders of three prostitutes in Kamloops since 2003
remain under investigation.