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A newly christened joint police team comprising members of the Regina Police Service and the RCMP is going to tackle the rising number of gun crimes in Regina.
What had been called the Combined Forces Selective Enforcement Unit, is now called the Crime Reduction Team, as of Jan. 1. The provincially funded collaboration between the Regina police and the RCMP had been focusing on drugs in Regina, but along with the name change, it changed its focus to gun crime in the city.
“We’re quite looking forward to this. I think there’s going to be a tremendous opportunity to make some inroads in understanding exactly what’s going on in our firearms investigations. We’ve done a good job up until this point, but now we’re going to have a dedicated group of individuals working on these, and I think they’ll have a good understanding of what’s going on, not just in Regina but also within the province,” explained Deputy Chief Dean Rae of the Regina Police Service.
Rae said the change can be traced back several years.
“Going back to about 2014 we saw a change in the level of violence and level of guns and gang activity, mostly precipitated by the crystal meth problems that we’re seeing,” said Rae.
Last year, the police started having meetings with the province, according to Rae, and the province communicated its interest in changing the policing focus to drugs, gangs, guns and property crime.
Each of Regina, Saskatoon, and Prince Albert has such a team. In Regina, Rae said the police decided to focus the team on guns.
According to the Regina Police Service’s own numbers, gun crimes were up 15 per cent from January to November in 2019, compared to the same period the year before.
Rae explained the Regina police have units that deal with drugs, gangs and property crime already. He said they and the new team will all work closely together, as the crimes often overlap.
“We’ve got a great deal of members assigned in those three areas to work on this problem, so I think we’re going to, hopefully, see some successes in our community,” Rae said.
The Regina team has six members from the Regina Police Service and four from the RCMP along with one RCMP analyst.
Rae said the team has a 20 per cent requirement to do work in and around Regina, so if there’s a problem outside the city limits, the team can go and help.
