89 charges laid in drug crackdown downtown

89 charges laid in drug crackdown downtown
Follow-up to similar sweep in February nets 34 arrests

Glenn Bohn, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, July 20, 2007

VANCOUVER – Sixty-three people face drug-trafficking charges following an undercover Vancouver police operation that targeted street-level dealers of crack cocaine in the Downtown Eastside.

A police roundup of the alleged dealers began Wednesday, leading to 34 arrests as of Thursday.

They are charged with a total of 89 offences, all of them either trafficking and possession for the purposes of trafficking.

Vancouver police drug squad Insp. Dean Robinson said the operation — called Project Tyke II, the follow-up to a similar sweep in February — focused on drug dealers who “repeatedly prey on the city’s most vulnerable people” along Hastings and other streets of the city’s poorest neighbourhood.

“These dealers have little regard for the health of addicts and the well-being of the community,” Robinson told a news conference. “It’s strictly a profit-driven industry. And the effects are felt not only in the Downtown Eastside, but in other parts of the city.”

He noted that addicts go to other neighbourhoods and break into homes and cars to steal things such as laptop computers and cameras, then fence them for about 10 per cent of their value.

“So when you think that an addict or substance abuser could have a habit of $250 a day,” he said, “they need to take $2,500 worth of property to fence and buy their drugs.”

According to Robinson, police first spent several weeks identifying some of the most prolific street-level traffickers in the Downtown Eastside. Small quantities of illicit drugs — mostly crack or “rock” cocaine, but also some heroin — were then bought, between July 3 and 13, by undercover officers. The entire 20-officer drug squad participated in the operation, as well as another 10 patrol officers.

“The message is quite clear,” Robinson said. “Residents and merchants in the Downtown Eastside deserve to feel safe in their neighbourhood. This means they should be able to walk their streets without having drug deals taking place under their noses, and having drug dealers and drug purchasers lurking in alcoves and in laneways. You can expect projects like this to continue . . . .”

Responding to questions from journalists, Robinson said just four of the 63 alleged drug dealers were previously arrested during the sweep in February.

He acknowledged that the Downtown Eastside crackdown is expected to increase drug dealing in other neighbourhoods, but said the police department will monitor activities and run another undercover operation elsewhere if needed.