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Commercial Drive beat discourages street disorder
Cops to maintain presence on the Drive, point to VPD statistics
Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier, December 2008
Foot patrols by Vancouver police officers in the Commercial Drive corridor will continue indefinitely because the area is seeing a decrease in street disorder.
Sgt. Cameron Murdock said foot patrols that began in June have helped reduce street assaults, threats against people and disturbance calls.
Police also gathered valuable information on the street that led to the bust of a drug dealing ring operating in two suites in a building near East 10th Avenue and Commercial Drive.
VPD officers such as (l-r) Chris Tang, Mark Bouchey, Chris Thring and Dayne Campbell will continue patrolling Commercial Drive.
One suite was used for dealing, the other for storing the drugs. Street dealers would also get their drugs from the storage suite and return to the Drive, Murdock said.
Police seized heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana worth about $15,000 on the street. The bust also uncovered $6,000 in cash, machetes, knives and replica handguns.
"After the suites were shut down, drugs in that area totally dried up," said Murdock, a member of the VPD's neighbourhood policing team.
Prior to launching the patrols, police recorded street disorder statistics for the Drive over the last two weeks in May. Police then compared those statistics to calls for service during the last two weeks of August--after the foot patrols had operated for almost three months.
Overall calls dropped by 30 per cent, with assaults plummeting by 85 per cent and "annoying person" calls, such as disorderly drunks and aggressive panhandlers, dropping by 52 per cent. "It's not rocket science, it's good old fashion policing--talking to people and getting to know the community," said Murdock of the decrease in crime.
He said the VPD wants to deploy more foot patrols to neighbourhoods, but the department needs more officers. City council's decision earlier this year to hire 96 police officers over two years will help bolster the ranks.
The VPD's plan for the new year is to continue deploying two teams of four officers each to patrol a stretch of the Drive from Third to 13th Avenues. The VPD officers will continue to work with the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority Police and security guards hired by the local business improvement association.
Eileen Mosca, a member of the board of directors for the Grandview-Woodland Community Policing Centre, described the drop in street disorder as "impressive."
"It made a huge difference at the Broadway and Commercial SkyTrain stations," she said. "There's a lot less fights and assaults and most of that was going on around that intersection."
Reports from residents and businesses are that there isn't as much public drug use, said Mosca, acknowledging the drug use has probably been displaced. "It just isn't in your face anymore."
The VPD's action on the Drive was prompted, in part, to a 2007 study that Mosca wrote with PhD student Valerie Spicer for the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies at Simon Fraser University.
The study asked 720 residents 30 questions related to crime, safety and quality of life. Fears over drug dealing were paramount in the study.
"The fact that 70 per cent of respondents had seen discarded syringes on the ground in the past six months indicates that new strategies are needed to reduce this public health and safety problem and to address drug related disorder," the study said.
Murdock said the foot patrol teams don't require additional funding, since the officers are redeployed from other units. The eight officers work a combined 21 hours a day. "It's open ended at this point," he said when asked how long foot patrols will continue on the Drive.
Commercial Drive beat discourages street disorder
Cops to maintain presence on the Drive, point to VPD statistics
Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier, December 2008
Foot patrols by Vancouver police officers in the Commercial Drive corridor will continue indefinitely because the area is seeing a decrease in street disorder.
Sgt. Cameron Murdock said foot patrols that began in June have helped reduce street assaults, threats against people and disturbance calls.
Police also gathered valuable information on the street that led to the bust of a drug dealing ring operating in two suites in a building near East 10th Avenue and Commercial Drive.
VPD officers such as (l-r) Chris Tang, Mark Bouchey, Chris Thring and Dayne Campbell will continue patrolling Commercial Drive.
One suite was used for dealing, the other for storing the drugs. Street dealers would also get their drugs from the storage suite and return to the Drive, Murdock said.
Police seized heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana worth about $15,000 on the street. The bust also uncovered $6,000 in cash, machetes, knives and replica handguns.
"After the suites were shut down, drugs in that area totally dried up," said Murdock, a member of the VPD's neighbourhood policing team.
Prior to launching the patrols, police recorded street disorder statistics for the Drive over the last two weeks in May. Police then compared those statistics to calls for service during the last two weeks of August--after the foot patrols had operated for almost three months.
Overall calls dropped by 30 per cent, with assaults plummeting by 85 per cent and "annoying person" calls, such as disorderly drunks and aggressive panhandlers, dropping by 52 per cent. "It's not rocket science, it's good old fashion policing--talking to people and getting to know the community," said Murdock of the decrease in crime.
He said the VPD wants to deploy more foot patrols to neighbourhoods, but the department needs more officers. City council's decision earlier this year to hire 96 police officers over two years will help bolster the ranks.
The VPD's plan for the new year is to continue deploying two teams of four officers each to patrol a stretch of the Drive from Third to 13th Avenues. The VPD officers will continue to work with the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority Police and security guards hired by the local business improvement association.
Eileen Mosca, a member of the board of directors for the Grandview-Woodland Community Policing Centre, described the drop in street disorder as "impressive."
"It made a huge difference at the Broadway and Commercial SkyTrain stations," she said. "There's a lot less fights and assaults and most of that was going on around that intersection."
Reports from residents and businesses are that there isn't as much public drug use, said Mosca, acknowledging the drug use has probably been displaced. "It just isn't in your face anymore."
The VPD's action on the Drive was prompted, in part, to a 2007 study that Mosca wrote with PhD student Valerie Spicer for the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies at Simon Fraser University.
The study asked 720 residents 30 questions related to crime, safety and quality of life. Fears over drug dealing were paramount in the study.
"The fact that 70 per cent of respondents had seen discarded syringes on the ground in the past six months indicates that new strategies are needed to reduce this public health and safety problem and to address drug related disorder," the study said.
Murdock said the foot patrol teams don't require additional funding, since the officers are redeployed from other units. The eight officers work a combined 21 hours a day. "It's open ended at this point," he said when asked how long foot patrols will continue on the Drive.