COPS' TURN TO GANG UP

GTA Forces Share Officers in New Anti-Gang Squad

Suburban gangbangers are in the sights of a specialized guns and gangs
squad drawn from across the GTA which could be on duty from
Streetsville to Stoufville within weeks, top law enforcement officials
said yesterday.

"The gang problem is a GTA problem," Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair
said. "It is not limited by Steeles Ave., the Rouge River and
Etobicoke Creek.

"These gangs are mobile and they represent a risk to all communities.
We have to pursue them everywhere they are and that's what we'll do."

The new unit will include Toronto's existing guns and gangs task force
and 26 experienced cops from Toronto, the RCMP, the OPP, and the
Durham, Peel and York police services, according to an announcement by
Blair, Attorney-General Michael Bryant and Community Safety Minister
Monte Kwinter.

In addition, 32 Crown prosecutors will be working with the
investigators, assisting with search warrants and wiretap requests and
helping to shape the cases that will be presented in court.

Blair said the new gang investigators will all be experienced senior
officers, whose replacements will come from the 1,000 new police
officers the provincial government has promised to hire by 2007.

Bryant said the government was committing $500,000 immediately to get
the new squad running and up to $6 million annually for the new
prosecutors.

"Today marks a major escalation by the forces of law and order in the
face of utterly unacceptable gun violence," Bryant said. "We are
expanding our arsenal."

The move comes in the midst of relentless gun violence across the GTA,
with three people killed in Toronto over the weekend, bringing to 44
the number of people killed with guns in the city this year. There
have been 64 murders.

Durham police Insp. Mike Ewles said the expanded unit will formalize
the considerable amount of cross-boundary co-operation that is already
taking place.

"We've been working with our GTA partners for years now," Ewles said,
noting Durham cops played a major role in Project Pathfinder, last
year's bust of the notorious Galloway Boys gang.

"If we want to be effective, we have to be integrating our guns and
gangs efforts," York police Chief Armand La Barge said, adding he'd
been talking to Blair about working together ever since Blair became
Toronto's new chief in March.

Halton police have not yet taken up an invitation to join the
initiative, even though two Oakville men, Aleem Rehmtulla, 26, and
Fahim Talakshi, 25, were murdered in Rexdale Sunday in what police
believe was a drug-related shooting.

Conservative community safety critic Garfield Dunlop called the
announcement a "knee-jerk" response and said it was the sixth time the
Liberals have re-announced the plan to hire 1,000 new cops. "The fact
of the matter is no new officers are on the street as we speak,"
Dunlop said. "The government has failed miserably in that way."

Toronto Police Association president Dave Wilson, whose membership is
embroiled in a bitter contract talks with the Police Services Board,
was underwhelmed.

"What I got out of that was a group hug," Wilson said.