About The Service Ground Search & Rescue Unit

About the Unit

The Ground Search and Rescue Unit provides a support service to all areas of the Police Service with specially trained Police members, volunteers, K-9 teams and equipment. Ground Search and Rescue members specialize in managing large scale searches for evidence and missing persons and are trained to operate in urban and wilderness environments. These range from door to door residential searches to areas not easily navigated such as bush, fields or river banks.

The Unit has been in operation since 2003, and was formally recognized as a Special Operations Unit within the Winnipeg Police Service in 2007. There are currently 25 police officers assigned to the Unit on a part-time basis. More than 150 Winnipeg Police Officers and 25 Victim Services Section / Community Service volunteers have received formal search training in support of the Unit's efforts.

The Ground Search and Rescue Unit works closely with other Winnipeg Police Units including:

Missing Persons Unit
Uniform Patrol Units
WPS Investigation Units
Mounted Patrol Unit
Canine Unit
WPS Bicycle Patrol Unit
WPS River Patrol
Underwater Search and Recovery Unit
WPS Crowd Management Unit

Additionally, the Unit works closely with:

Trained search and rescue volunteers from the WPS Community and Victim Services volunteer programs.
Winnipeg Search & Rescue Association
Search and Rescue Manitoba Inc. (SARMAN)
Office of the Fire Commissioner
Child Find Manitoba
Alzheimer Society of Manitoba
Members of the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service

The team is committed to ongoing training with the province-wide Ground Search and Rescue Network whose exercises have been partially funded over the past three years under the New Initiatives Fund, sponsored by the National Search and Rescue Secretariat.