RCMP AND LOCAL POLICE JOIN FORCES TO CRACK DOWN ON STREET CRIME

TRURO -- A new policing partnership is being established to help
crack down on street crime in Truro and throughout Colchester County.

The effort was developed through the province's Safer Streets and
Communities, introduced last year, which involves providing funding
for street crime units. It involves an RCMP member partnering with a
Truro police officer, working in plain clothes to tackle targeted
enforcement of such issues as break and enters, thefts, vandalism and
some street-level drugs.

"We have high expectations of our street-crime team," RCMP Staff Sgt.
Hugh Walker recently told Colchester County council, while
introducing the concept.

"We're going to be targeting street crime -- drugs, B and Es, the
whole nine yards, county wide."

Walker said some elements of street crime, especially regarding
drugs, are getting worse, a factor he attributes in part to a lack of
education and a somewhat complacent societal attitude.

"It is the trafficking of drugs, it is the control of drugs," he
said, adding that authority figures must do a better job of "getting
to the youth," especially in light of a culture in which "we have
parents giving their kids drugs."

"How do we deal with that?" he asked. "It's not just a political
problem, it's a medical problem, it's an educational problem, it's
also a greed problem."

But Walker and Dave MacNeil, deputy chief of the Truro Police
Service, are both hoping the new partnership will prove successful in
helping alleviate some of the drug problems along with other
street-level crimes.

"Oftentimes, one person is responsible for multiple break and enters
(in both urban and rural areas)," MacNeil said. From an investigation
perspective,

however, different patrol officers on different shifts, even though
they may work for the same department, could all be working on
individual files for the same crimes without ever making that connection.

"We're going to try to co-ordinate our break and enter investigations
. if everyone is working on their own files, it's harder to catch
them (the criminals)," MacNeil said. "We're looking for some results
and good target-hardened policing."