Pubdate: Wed, 28 Sep 2005
Source: Coquitlam Now, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005Lower Mainland Publishing Group, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.thenownews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1340
Author: Jennifer Saltman, Staff Reporter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

CLEANUP CREW HIRED FOR GROW OPS

The Coquitlam RCMP has a working agreement with a professional group that 
includes retired police officers to help take down marijuana grow ops.

The group will act as a cleanup crew after police officers have wrapped up 
at a scene.

"Literally, they will only dismantle it and bring some stuff back, end of 
story. They're not doing any of the other police work at all," said Cpl. 
Jane Baptista.

Coquitlam's Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) will continue to do all 
investigations, get warrants, enter the buildings, secure the scene, deal 
with evidence and arrest and process suspects.

Certain steps have to be done for court and there are police protocols that 
have to be followed, so police will continue to do all police work.

However, instead of spending hours at a scene putting plants into bags and 
clearing out equipment, the group - which Baptista described as a security 
group - will come in to do the grunt work.

"There's absolutely no change in the police work," Baptista said. "It just, 
hopefully, will increase that unit's investigative capacity because the 
members will continue on to do more investigations instead of spending just 
hours cleaning up these things."

Officers can spend four or five hours just cleaning up after a bust, and 
police are hoping that the extra help will allow the officers to streamline 
the process.

Baptista said an organization with retired members was chosen to do the 
work because they have experience dismantling grow ops.

"People who have back experience, you know, they know how to safely take 
these down because it's not a situation that you're just going to put 
anybody from the general public into," she said.

The helpers are called out as needed and work at a scene under the control 
of a police officer.

Baptista said she's not sure where the idea came from, but Surrey RCMP has 
been using a similar professional group for the past six months.

Police began working with the group during the past few weeks and has been 
out to four or five grow ops.

"They're going to try this out and basically if it can save a few hours of 
a couple of other members' time, those two members can be going on to the 
investigation or taking down the next grow," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom