Port Alberni’s top cop says the city’s crime reduction unit is working hard to collar the community’s chronic offenders.
Inspector Brian Hunter says his officers made a major arrest every day last week after monitoring people well known to them.
Police arrested 2 suspected drug dealers and two of their customers last Wednesday, seizing a significant quantity of cocaine, cash, and a car.
They also arrested two men who had recently arrived in town and were committing various property crimes.
This past Thursday he said Crime Reduction Unit members were conducting surveillance when they spotted a suspicious vehicle.
They tried to stop it on River Road at Josephine Street, but the 45-year old Port Alberni man behind the wheel sped off.
Last Wednesday a chronic property crime offender was located by the police in the area of 4th Avenue and Argyle Street.
The 30 year old man ran away but police set up quick containment in the area and located the man hiding in a condemned building.
Hunter says the man had recently been arrested for a break and enter, but released from custody after serving just one day for a breach of his probation.
He says when this man appears in court next week, police are asking that he be placed on conditions to not reside in Port Alberni.
Hunter says Port Alberni RCMP continue to deter, detect and dismantle illegal drug and property crime operations in the Alberni Valley, and encourage people to continue to advise police of suspicious people or activities in their neighbourhoods.