ALBERTA SETS UP NEW POLICE UNIT TO COMBAT ORGANIZED CRIME

Canadian Press

CALGARY (CP) -- The Alberta government is creating a provincial police unit
to battle organized crime by gangs that have infiltrated cities throughout
the province, Solicitor General Heather Forsyth announced Thursday.

"This is a dark day for members of organized crime in our province,''
Forsyth said.

"We will not put up with another drive-by shooting, another child hooked on
meth or another senior victimized by fraud.

"We are going to keep our communities safe.''

The province will spend an additional $3.5 million this year to fight
organized crime and street gangs.

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.

"No matter whether the people we're targeting in Edmonton are in Calgary
tomorrow or in Grande Prairie the next day, we will have them covered with
this new initiative,'' he said.

The province and police chiefs reviewed similar policing units in Ontario,
Quebec and British Columbia before coming up with the "made-in-Alberta
solution.''

Much of the details need to be worked out as funding was approved by the
province just last week.

The new unit is to complement rather than replace those in existing police
departments that already investigate organized crime and gangs.