The D Division is one of 15 divisions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and is headquartered in Winnipeg. The division is commanded by Assistant Commissioner Scott Kolody and consists of 1089 police officers and 438 support staff D Division carries out the RCMP's federal policing responsibilities in Manitoba and at times northwestern Ontario. These duties include combating organized crime, border integrity, and VIP protection, among others. D Division is also contracted by the Province of Manitoba to act as the provincial police. In that role, the division provides front-line policing to towns and rural areas which have not established their own police services. In addition, some municipalities which are responsible under Manitoba law for their own policing have chosen to contract the RCMP to provide that service. As a result, the division provides front-line policing services to over 500,000 people spread over nearly all of Manitoba's 650,000 square kilometres, including some of Canada's most remote areas.
Organization
Federal
The division's federal units are almost all based out of the division's headquarters building in Winnipeg, but with an Integrated Border Enforcement Team based out of Altona.
Provincial
The division's provincial policing resources are mainly spread around the province, with some specialty and support units based out of the headquarters building. The province is divided into three geographical districts; north, west and east, and each is commanded by a Superintendent. The districts are then divided into a total of 87 detachments. Some detachments are amalgamated, pooling resources together to serve a wider area more efficiently. The offices of an amalgamated detachments are referred to as a host and satellite offices. In addition to detachments, the RCMP maintains community offices in smaller communities which provides office space for RCMP members to use on a temporary basis, and patrol cabins which provide overnight accommodations to RCMP members travelling to remote communities where there is no permanent policing presence. The following communities have a detachment or satellite office of a larger detachment area
Areas without all-weather road access, instead accessible only by ice road, air, boat, or rail are denoted by a *, while district headquarters are in bold. Few detachments within the division have the resources to have police officers on-duty 24 hours a day, but instead rely on on-call officers to respond during quieter hours. Telephone calls to the RCMP within Manitoba are often routed to the Operational Communication Centre, located within the headquarters building. The OCC is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year with telecommunications operators, specialized civilians who are trained to take calls from the public and dispatch police officers.
Support Units
The division houses units composed of police officers trained in specialized policing skills to provide support to the rest of the division or other police services within Manitoba under the division's duties as the provincial police. Some of these units include:
Emergency Response Team - providing advanced training and equipment to deal with situations such as armed and barricaded persons or high-risk search warrants
Explosives Disposal Unit - providing disposal of found explosives and improvised explosive devices, along with chemical, biological, or radiological dissemination devices, and post-blast investigations
Forensic Identification Services - collecting forensic evidence at crime scenes
Search and Rescue - locating lost people in remote areas
Technological Crime - collecting evidence from technological devices
Underwater Recovery Team - police diving unit for locating bodies or evidence underwater
Transportation
Policing such a large and often remote area requires presents transportation challenges. While the division employs the use of traditional police cars, the division also has many pick-ups, some equipped to run on train tracks, boats, snowmobiles, quads, and three Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, two stationed in Winnipeg and one in Thompson.