A member of a Prince George gang was arrested in a drug raid at a home on the northern edge of the city Thursday. A marijuana grow-operation was also seized.
The name of the suspect and organized crime affiliation were not disclosed by police, but the information was provided to The Citizen by the public after RCMP stormed a house in the 13,000 block of Chief Lake Road.
"We had to execute a high-risk warrant, and for the sake of the public's safety that required the closure of the road for up to half an hour," Prince George RCMP spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass said. Douglass would neither confirm nor deny any specifics about the two people arrested in the incident.
The police team included the Prince George detachment's Drug Section, the city's Forensic Identification Unit, the region's Emergency Response Team for safeguarding the area, and the involvement of the special federal RCMP's Cariboo Region Integrated Marijuana Enforcement Task Force.
"We were being extra cautious to ensure, as best we can, that nothing went wrong for the safety of the public and the safety of the officers," Douglass said.
"A warrant is a warrant, but we classified this as high-risk out of concern for the safety of our members, and the people driving by, and living in the immediate vicinity, because if something does go wrong, you want bystanders to be as protected as possible," he said. "We have to balance public safety with the need to complete the task at hand. We made an assessment as to the level of attention this operation would require, but if we determined that the threat to public safety was too high, we would not carry out the task at hand. In a multi-unit process, this was deemed to be an appropriate level of enforcement for this operation."
Police descended on the house in force at about 11 a.m. Thursday. A 23-year-old male was arrested at the home and a 34-year-old male was arrested in a vehicle a short distance away. Both are Prince George residents. Neither offered police a struggle.
The amount of marijuana, whether weapons were present, and any other particulars of the scene were still being tabulated by police as of press time.
Neighbours in the area told The Citizen that concerns in the area had been rising about the possible activities going on at the house, but nothing specific was mentioned. Those in the area spoken to by The Citizen expressed dismay that police had to take action in their area of town, but were not surprised at the address in question.
The names of the suspects were not disclosed, pending the swearing of formal charges.
