Prince Albert Police Service Inspector Brent McDonald. (Screen grab/PAPS press conference)

By Alison Sandstrom

Police

PAPS spotlights Integrated Crime Reduction Team

Oct 28, 2020 | 6:42 PM

The Prince Albert Police Service (PAPS) is highlighting the work of one of its units focused on gun violence and gang activity after a recent spike in violent crime in the city.

The inspector who oversees the Integrated Crime Reduction Team (ICRT) told reporters violent offences have decreased in the last couple weeks. Inspector Brent McDonald said that could be partly due to investigations leading to key arrests. He also credited high visibility patrols performed by his team and other officers from PAPS and RCMP.

“We lean on everybody when a spike in crime happens such as we recently experienced,” McDonald said, adding that front-line patrol officers across both services have played a key role.

“They know who the players are as well,” he continued. “So simple vehicle stops have often led to arrests of people with warrants and often discovery of illegal fire arms and illicit drugs.”

The Integrated Crime Reduction Team (ICRT) is just under a year old and is made up of nine members from both the PAPS and the RCMP.

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“I think it’s important to know that there are units within our police service that are dedicated to gang violence and fire arms and drugs,” McDonald said. “And those members are working hard to take the illegal contraband off the street and pursue charges on people responsible.”

McDonald repeated previous comments made by Chief Jon Bergen that several recent violence incidents were related to conflict within gangs.

“The motive behind a lot of these offences tends to be personal beefs between individual gang members in the same gang,” he said.

While McDonald said he was pleased with the decrease in violent crime in the last few weeks, his team is not letting its guard down.

“I’m not naive to the fact that if we were to stop doing the high visibility proactive work, we could easily be faced with another increase,” Inspector Brent McDonald said.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom