Pubdate: Wed, 02 Jun 2004
Source: Sherwood Park News (CN AB)
Copyright: 2004 Sherwood Park News
Contact:  http://www.sherwoodparknews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1730
Author: Julie Rohr

ONE MOUNTIE TO FOCUS ON DRUGS

In response to the rising thefts and drug offences, police have added a new 
member to their plainclothes unit to deal specifically with those crimes.

"We've taken the initiative of establishing an intelligence person within 
our plainclothes unit," said Staff Sgt. Lee Findlay.

"We're asking that person to correlate information with the hopes of 
dealing with drug issues and property crimes. We think that some of the 
drug issues and the property crimes are kind of correlated towards each other."

Const. Darren Anderson, media liaison for the Strathcona County RCMP, 
indicated some aspects of policing are leaning more upon surveillance and 
observation.

"Basically, the way policing is going is it's going to be more intelligence 
led," said Darren. "So we gather all this information, and we need somebody 
to try to correlate it . . . see if there's any trend or any areas we 
should be working on, and hopefully allocate it resources."

The position was put into place earlier this year due to an overload on the 
plainclothes department in general.

"In the last year, our plain clothes unit, which would have normally done 
that, were so heavily tasked with some major incidences," said Anderson, 
referring to two homicide investigations that took place last year.

"They were so heavily tasked with some of these major problems that they 
just didn't have the time."

Both Anderson and Findlay are hopeful the new intelligence position will 
help discover some new information about drug offences and other crimes in 
Sherwood Park.

"I don't know what the end result will be, but that's what we're trying 
right now," said Findlay.
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