ORGANIZED CRIME FUNDING PASSES BY LETHBRIDGE

Lethbridge police are disappointed they and other medium-sized police
agencies in the province have been shut out of new funding announced
Thursday to fight organized crime.

The Alberta government is creating a provincial police unit to battle
organized crime by gangs that have infiltrated cities throughout the province.

The province will spend an additional $3.5 million this year to fight
organized crime and street gangs. It appears none of that new money will
make it beyond the province's two major centres.

"We're happy that our partners in Calgary and Edmonton and the RCMP have
this financial support," said Sgt. Jamie Fisher, Lethbridge police
spokesman. "They have a very real and obvious need for the money as do we.

"We're disappointed that, to date, we haven't received that financial
support. I'm sure the other medium-sized cities in the province feel the
same," he said. "This makes medium-sized cities such as Lethbridge more
attractive to organized crime."

Meanwhile, in making the announcement, Solicitor General Heather Forsyth
said: "This is a dark day for members of organized crime in our province.

"We will not put up with another drive-by shooting, another child hooked on
meth or another senior victimized by fraud," she said. "We are going to
keep our communities safe."

The move was necessary because the problem has spread beyond Calgary and
Edmonton to smaller cities, including Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat,
Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie, Forsyth said.

"We've got the Hells Angels moving into the smaller areas that normally we
wouldn't have seen before."

The unit will target rival street gangs who are battling over territory,
and, in some cases, taking their turf wars to the streets where several
public shooting deaths have occurred in the last several years.

Police say there are thousands of members in 24 organized crime groups who
have expanded their activities to include methamphetamine labs and
marijuana grow operations. As well, gangs are extorting, laundering money,
hiring hit men for murder, smuggling immigrants, stealing citizen
identities and manipulating stock markets.

The RCMP is committing 18 of its officers, who will help nab organized
criminals who work nationally and internationally.

"The heads of large criminal organizations are not contained by borders,"
said Bill Sweeney, RCMP assistant commissioner in Alberta. "Under this
integrated model, policing efforts won't be either."

Until now, most police departments in Alberta operated independently to
catch gangs, often duplicating one another's work, and when gang members
moved from one city to another, there was no formal system to track them.

The new unit, two teams in Calgary and another two in Edmonton, will now
follow gang members wherever they go, said Edmonton police Chief Bob Wasylyshen.