The Beat

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is a hotbed of crime, poverty and drug abuse. A special police unit, the Beat Enforcement Team, is charged with maintaining order amidst the chaos. The team's newest recruit is police academy trainee, Mariya Zhalovaga. With veteran Shane Aitken showing her the ropes, Mariya will have to learn quickly or risk being left aside.

With his resources stretched to the limit, Sergeant Toby Hinton is asked to commit officers to a new initiative called "Operation Clean Streets". Beat Enforcement Team members will be escorting street-cleaning crews through the Downtown Eastside. Two weeks into her training assignment, the BET's newest recruit, Mariya Zhalovaga, has yet to hit her stride.

Constable Kristie Fisher returns from medical leave, her latest attempt at getting pregnant having failed. She and partner Tara Munro escort home a local resident who's been receiving threats from a violent ex-boyfriend. The case resurfaces two days later when the ex-boyfriend breaks into the woman's apartment and attacks her.

At the Beat Enforcement Team's daily briefing, Sergeant Toby Hinton alerts his squad to a rash of drug overdoses that have swept across the Downtown Eastside. The illicit trade of methadone, a drug prescribed to treat heroine addiction, might be the cause. Inspector McKay prepares his team for an anti-police demonstration.

As Acting Staff Sergeant Toby Hinton adjusts to a more administrative role, his successor at the BET, Sergeant Steinkampf, unveils his first operation in the Downtown Eastside: a major clean up of the drug trade taking place on the front steps and back alleys of the neighborhood's Carnegie Community Center.

The poverty and drug abuse of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is starting to spill over into nearby Chinatown. With business owners and residents alarmed, the BET decide to act. Constable Stu Black takes charge of the situation by clearing the streets of drug users, and then targets a notorious dealer who operates out of a Chinatown rooming-house.

Constable Shane Aitken takes a class of local high school students on a tour of the Downtown Eastside. The sights and sounds are at times grim and disturbing, but they drive home the realities of addiction.

A controversial government decision to shut down a safe injection site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has everyone choosing sides. Sergeant Steinkampf takes a visiting journalist on a tour of the neighborhood, just as housing activists decide to squat in a nearby park.

Rooming houses on the Downtown Eastside have become a favorite spot for drug dealers to conduct business. When Sergeant Mark Steinkampf receives a tip concerning a drug ring in one of the neighborhood's most notorious buildings, he decides to act. Once the necessary search warrants are in place, the Beat Enforcement Team prepare a large-scale raid.

With "Operation Old Timer" in full swing, acting Staff Sergeant Toby Hinton decides that he will take a turn as the undercover elderly decoy. A professional makeup artist ages Hinton by 30 years in a few short hours, so he can make himself a target to the area's predators.