The Manitoba RCMP recognizes that violent crime has risen in some rural communities, often driven by street-gangs and prolific offenders.
To address this, the RCMP have created the Strategic Enforcement Response Team (SERT).
RCMP says “these prolific offenders and street gang members are using a variety of weapons, including firearms, to carry out their intimidation and violent crimes. This heightens the risk and threatens the safety of all community residents.”
RCMP Superintendent Scott McMurchy says the first deployment was in Moose Lake, Manitoba from July 20-22.
Moose Lake was selected due to a recent spike in crime, including homicides, firearm-related calls, and street-gang activity. McMurchy also mentioned Moose Lake, a community of 12-hundred people, had a 40 percent increase in violent crime in 2021.
Over the course of 3 days, search warrants and warrants of arrest as well as compliance checks were done in the community.
On July 20th, a search warrant was executed at a home on Birch Street in Moose Lake, where 21-year-old Agel Awak Agnek, of Winnipeg, and a 16-year-old male from Calgary were charged with Trafficking Cocaine and Possession of the Proceeds of Crime under $5-thousand. A second search warrant was executed the same day at a home on Kistigan Road in Moose Lake, where a crossbow, ammunition and a firearm were seized.
In addition, 75 checks were conducted on people with court-imposed conditions or arrest warrants. Seven individuals were charged with failure to comply with their conditions, two were arrested for outstanding warrants, and RCMP noted one of the individuals arrested was identified as “one of the most prolific offenders in Moose Lake.”
McMurchy says there are plans for deployment to other communities.
“We’re going to bring in our own existing resources, put together a group of individuals – police officers, investigators – to go in and address that community’s issues, whenever that comes. It could be violent crime, gang activity, it could be drug trafficking, you name it, it really community dependent and area dependent.” McMurchy said.
“So in this particular case, we had officers from Major Crime Services, Crime Reduction Enforcement Teams (CREST), general duty officers from Manitoba North District, Manitoba First Nation Police Service…all partnered together. So if we’re going into a different area of the province, it may be different individuals.” he added.
RCMP say the team will operate in two-phases: one is intelligence gathering and data analysis and the second is creating a detailed, enforcement plan.
“Our government supports the RCMP in the creation and deployment of this intelligence-led response team. Pursuing these gang members and violent offenders with targeted resources will help to address the violent criminal activity harming many Manitoban communities.” said Manitoba Justice Minister and Attorney General Kelvin Goertzen in a media release.
