Apprehending Fugitives
There was a 1993 movie starring Harrison Ford called “The Fugitive”. It follows a man running from justice after being falsely accused of murdering his wife. While fictional, fugitives in real life do evade the law, and Alberta has a dedicated team that goes after them. The following article is based on a presentation to the Foothills County Policing Committee on May 19th.
The province has a specialized Alberta Sheriff ’s Branch team called the Fugitive Apprehension Sheriff Support Team (FASST). Its role is to locate and apprehend dangerous fugitives with outstanding arrest warrants, in partnership with other law enforcement agencies, to enhance community safety.
FASST also supports police of jurisdiction and other enforcement and correctional partners with warrant apprehensions, including electronic monitoring, parole, probation and RCMP warrants. The team can also lay applicable new criminal and provincial charges.
FASST is a specialized unit of 16 sheriffs operating in north and south regions, supported by shared analytical resources.
FASST partners with police of a jurisdiction to receive targets who are wanted in Alberta. These are prioritized using a matrix before being assigned. Once assigned, the team uses various investigative techniques to locate, arrest, and process fugitives.
FASST categorizes targets into three “tiers”:
- Tier 1: The fugitive has caused harm or poses a significant risk to public safety, including serious violent offences and those with a history of indictable crimes.
- Tier 2: The fugitive has exhibited a pattern of prolific criminal behavior. Prolific offenders with a high impact on the community, including hybrid offences.
- Tier 3: Fugitives wanted for summary conviction or provincial / municipal offences, generally posing a lower risk to officers and the public.
FASST had 684 arrests with 3,038 warrants executed in 2025. Ninety to 95 per cent of arrests were for Tier 1 fugitives. FASST supported 73 different municipalities within Alberta, and 12 from other Canadian provinces.
In Foothills County, FASST made three arrests in 2025, executing 22 warrants. The team also executed 35 RCMP-held warrants through six arrests in other areas of southern Alberta.
There is a second unit, the Sheriffs Investigative Support Unit (SISU) which is responsible for providing specialized surveillance services gathering evidence or intelligence in support of criminal investigations throughout Alberta. It consists of 32 Sheriffs across the province.
Surveillance teams will receive a request from the police of jurisdiction to conduct surveillance. These requests are triaged by priority. The team conducts surveillance and provides all notes to the lead investigator. SISU members are available for court testimony when needed.
There were 256 surveillance files in 2025. The majority of files were focused on drug and organized crime activity. Only one file was primarily located in Foothills County.
A third team within the Alberta Sheriffs Investigative Services is the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) unit. Its role is to make communities safer by using legislation to target residential and commercial problem properties where specified illegal activity is occurring regularly. This includes drug trafficking, prostitution, and gang-related crime.
The SCAN unit operates under the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) Act, which uses legal sanctions and court orders to hold owners accountable for illegal activity happening on their property.
SCAN Investigators take on a file, and once evidence is gathered, may take the following actions:
- Verbal conversation/warning with owner.
- Evictions, proper screening of tenants, etc.
- Serve warning letter, signed by the Director of Law Enforcement.
- Apply to courts for a Community Safety Order (CSO). A CSO allows a property to be closed for up to 90 days.
SCAN empowers citizens through a community complaint-driven process. Section 31(1) SCAN Act: No person shall disclose the identity of the complainant, or any information by which the complainant may be identified.
SCAN completed 984 investigations in 2025. 104 warning letters and 15 CSO’s were issued. To learn more, visit: alberta.ca/SCAN
Dave Schroeder
HCRCWA Board Member
Free Classifieds