Dundee’s lord provost has seen at first-hand Lochee police officers’ efforts to tackle the drug menace in their area.
Bob Duncan, who is also a councillor for the Lochee ward, observed an early-morning raid on a flat in the city’s Burnside Court multi.
The drug enforcement warrant was part of the police’s ongoing Operation Highrise, which targets drug activity in the area’s “streets in the sky”.
Mr Duncan said: “These raids are not unusual but I was invited along to see how it all took place. It was very interesting.
“There was a briefing in Lochee police station and they told us who they were looking for and how they were going to get into the house.
“They went up there and very efficiently broke into the house. There was a dog patrol to sniff out anything that might have been there.
“There was a team of officers there and it struck me as quite powerful, as they were very drilled in what they were doing.
“I was impressed with the speed and efficiency of the whole thing.
“It really gives you an insight into how much work the police are doing in Lochee and across the city.
“They are doing monitoring and surveillance on a very high scale.”
PC Andy Kerr said the lord provost was told about the officers’ enforcement techniques, what they were expecting and what they hoped to find in the flat.
He said: “The lord provost stayed at the back as we were potentially going into a house that was a violent house. We executed the warrant but unfortunately there was no one within.”
The dog patrols were later out on the Lochee streets as part of the latest national Campaign Against Violence day.
Mr Kerr added: “The message to criminals is that we are not going away. If you’re doing drugs, we’ll be coming through your door.”