PROJECT HARVEST LOOKING TO REAP BIG RESULTS

New Police Chief Hopes To Make His Mark With Assault On City's Growing
Crack Problem

The last time a Hamilton police chief declared war on crack cocaine,
all he got after a six-week project was a hunk of crack the size of a
golf ball.

Maybe the new chief will have better luck.

Last Monday, on the day Brian Mullan was sworn in as the city's new
chief of police and promised to make the battle against crack his top
priority, Project Harvest was launched in Hamilton's east end. For the
next six weeks, a team of nine cops -- a detective, four HEAT (High
Enforcement Action Team) members, a youth officer and two BEAR (Break,
Enter, Auto theft and Robbery) unit officers -- will focus their
efforts on five crack houses in just one small, densely populated
area: the patch of Hamilton between Wentworth and Ottawa streets and
Barton and Main.

Early in 1999, Mullan's predecessor, former Chief Ken Robertson,
wrapped up his own six-week attack on crack. He threw 28 officers at
the problem and told them to do whatever it took to fix the city's
crack scourge.

At the end of it all, just $5,110 worth of the highly addictive drug
was seized in a number of low-level raids. It barely dented the city's
supply.

It will be interesting to see if we'll reap bigger benefits from
Project Harvest.

It's not hard to find a crack house in East Hamilton. There are at
least a dozen. What's difficult is shutting one down.

It takes a lot of leg work and an equal amount of luck for police to
close a crack house. And sometimes, practically before the paperwork
is done, the dealers and the users are back out on the street and back
to their old tricks.

But the cops can't quit. They can't give up on what sometimes seems
like a losing battle. They have to enforce the law, make the effort,
do the right thing. Even if, at the end of the day, they've managed
only to keep Hamilton's festering crack cocaine problem from getting
worse.

Despite those odds, Mullan, has made it his mission to clean up the
crack.

He has vowed to partner with other sectors to attack it from every
angle possible -- criminally, politically, economically, medically.

Project Harvest had been on the drawing board for a while. Ever since
police crime analysts noted a huge spike in East Hamilton robberies
during the summer. In July, there were 36 per cent more robberies than
the previous year. In August, the increase skyrocketed to 64 per cent.

The correlation between robberies and crack use is well known. As
addicts spiral farther and farther into their expensive habit, they
begin to commit desperate crimes to get money so they can buy more
drugs.

So when the stats showed an increase in robberies, the cops realized
there were more crack houses doing more business. And Project Harvest
was born.

"But it's not as easy as just pulling the plug on crack houses," says
Superintendent Ken Leendertse.

First there must be surveillance and intelligence gathering to acquire
enough evidence to get a search warrant. Then police must time their
take-down so there is actually crack in the house when they enter.
They need to catch the dealers and users red-handed.

"Crack is easy to dispose of," says Leendertse. "It can be flushed
down the toilet very easily."

Shutting down a crack house isn't just a job for the cops. Using a
multi-agency approach, police can find other ways to keep the sellers
and buyers from infiltrating a neighbourhood. The fire department can
fine crack house owners for code violations. The city's property
standards department can do the same for bylaw infractions.

If Hamilton is ever going to control crack, it's going to take
commitment not just from the cops, but from the whole community.

We've got to stop thinking about this as a crime problem. It's a
social problem.

Is Project Harvest the answer we've been looking for? Probably
not.

"But it's got to start somewhere," says Leendertse. "This is the first
step on a long journey."