Nearly a thousand suspects rounded up in 10-day multi-agency operation

Edmonton police, Mounties and Alberta’s sheriffs rounded up just under a thousand suspected criminals in 10 days, in a joint operation that saw the agencies pool their resources together to bring their most wanted suspects to justice.

This past October, 999 arrests were made between the eighth and 18th of October.

“This is the first formal joint forces operation, and from our perspective, it went very well,” said Chip Sawchuk, Alberta Sheriff.

In Edmonton and surrounding communities, 108 suspected criminals were taken into custody and 4 of which are in Alberta’s top 100 most wanted.

This is the result of a new data sharing initiative, over a thousand warrants executed after all three agencies combined and readjusted their most wanted lists: ranking 85,000 suspects throughout Alberta with outstanding warrants.

“We have all police agencies in the province speaking the same language when it comes to how to rank offenders. The sheriffs being able to come on board and help us target the priority offenders is great,” said Mike Mccauley, Alberta RCMP.

The nearly thousand suspects brought forward 2,260 total charges. A little less than a third of warrants related to traffic violations, almost two-thirds tied to criminal code offences. Moreover, 54 suspects had several outstanding warrants for arrest.

“The amount of crime from people that we arrested in that two-week period would take away all the crime in a single medium-sized city in Alberta,” said Mccauley.

Alberta sheriffs and the RCMP say the next time they commence this operation, they’ll be working with Calgary police.