Titled “Crazy Driver in Richmond,” a YouTube video showing several drivers blowing through red lights quickly went viral.

But now that gang squad officials say those were clandestine cops trailing bad guys, a retired police chief and former surveillance officer himself is lauding the skills of the officers at the wheel.

"I'd like to reassure your viewers there's extensive training that goes into this. This is a standard procedure, I would say, in the Western world,” Terry Coleman told CTV News.

The longtime police officer retired from the Moose Jaw Police after 10 years at the helm, having previously served for 28 years with the Calgary Police Service. During his time at the latter agency, he often participated in the exact type of covert surveillance seen in the dashcam video.

“From what I could see, it was all done safely,” he said. “One vehicle went a little faster than some of the others, but I noticed the intersection was wide open and I'm sure the person who was driving that vehicle was looking all ways at once to get through without any accident."

When CTV News showed the video to Richmond residents, they all reacted with surprise at the aggressive driving and weren’t comforted by the fact it was cops operating the vehicles.

“What if some family was driving by and got hit or something? It's the cops' fault," said one man.

Another pointed out the vehicles weren’t just unmarked police cruisers, they were actual civilian vehicles by all appearances, and the average driver wouldn’t know they were anti-gang cops on the chase.

"You can't take for granted everyone's going to stop. Driving a vehicle like that, you're just asking for an accident to happen," he said.

In an email statement Thursday evening, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit acknowledged the three vehicles “were being driven by CFSEU-BC-assigned police officers who were on duty and actively engaged in surveillance on high-level targets involved in gang and organized crime related activity.”

The secretive police force is primarily staffed with officers on secondment from municipal police forces, RCMP detachments and Canada Border Services Agency posts throughout the province with the mandate of fighting organized crime and gang activity.

“While we cannot comment on the nature of the surveillance due to the active investigation that the officers who were driving the vehicles were involved in, we want to reassure those concerned that we are committed to ensuring the public’s safety due to the risks of gang-related violence in our communities,” said CFSEU Sgt. Brenda Winpenny.

The CFSEU turned down requests for further information.

Coleman had some additional insights into the secretive world of gangster surveillance glimpsed in the dashcam video, which has since been removed from YouTube.

"I would suspect in the Lower Mainland there's probably several operations independent of each other – or perhaps linked – where there are several surveillance teams operating at any given time."