The Legislature Raids

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UNSTABLE GANG SCENE UNIQUE TO B.C.

Composition of organized crime groups constantly shifting due to convenient location and profitable grow-ops, police say

PATRICK BRETHOUR
With files from Justine Hunter in Victoria
THE GLOBE AND MAIL - October 24, 2007

VANCOUVER -- A lethal intersection of American guns, sea routes to Asia and rapidly proliferating marijuana grow-ops has given rise to a volatile gang scene in British Columbia, police say.

In other parts of Canada, established gangs provide some measure of stability to their illegal industries - {Snip} ...

"What we have here is a phenomenon unlike anywhere else in Canada," said Sergeant Shinder Kirk of B.C.'s Integrated Gang Taskforce, a police group established two years ago in the wake of a slew of slayings in the Indo-Canadian community.

There are 129 gangs active in B.C. Sgt. Kirk said mid-level gangs in particular are seeking to establish themselves.

Younger street-level groups frequently shift and disband, making them harder to track.

What they all have in common is a profit motive built on B.C.'s massive marijuana exports, which allow gangs to smuggle hard drugs and high-powered guns into Canada, he said.

The geography of the Lower Mainland plays a big role in British Columbia's growing gang problem, Sgt. Kirk said. Ports provide ready access to Asia, and the U.S. border is only a few kilometres away. And grow-ops are proliferating, giving gangs every incentive to resort to violence, even murder, to grab a bigger piece of the profits.

The taskforce was founded because of violence in one community, but the problem of gang life has changed dramatically. Sgt. Kirk said talk of ethnic gangs misses the reality of gang life in B.C., where the malleable composition of criminal groups is the only real constant. Some gang members are poor, some not. Some are dropouts, some are university graduates, he said.

Yesterday, B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal said today's violence stems from complacency of decades past when the deadly lure of gangs was played down. "We keep meeting with people at the grassroots level who are really paying the price for the neglect of the eighties and the nineties where we didn't do our homework. We had plenty of warning at that time that gangs were a part of our culture and we as a society have ignored that, so we have many kids out there who are dysfunctional, who find gang life to be cool."

Rob Gordon, the head of the criminology department at Simon Fraser University ... sees major differences between that earlier era of gang activity and the current one, with the biggest being the enormous profits to be made growing, exporting and selling illegal drugs, mostly marijuana.

Pot may have a benevolent reputation, he said, but any users who aren't growing their own supplies are fuelling the war playing out on the streets of the Lower Mainland. "Ultimately, you're contributing to the violence."

And the level of violence is escalating: There have been high-profile shootings this year, with bullets flying in public places like the Fortune Happiness restaurant, threatening to injure innocent people.

Now, in Surrey, two bystanders were not only killed - they were deliberately murdered.

That indicates that some gangs no longer feel the need to operate in the shadows, a prospect that Dr. Gordon finds deeply worrisome. "It's a very public demonstration of power. We should all be concerned."


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071024.BCGANGS24/TPStory/TPNational/BritishColumbia/

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"We had plenty of warning ... that gangs were a part of our culture and we as a society have ignored that, so we have many kids out there who are dysfunctional, who find gang life to be cool," says B.C.'s attorney-general.

Not so fast, Wally. You're blaming the kids? Aren't you overlooking B.C.'s 21st century failure to guide those kids into some genuine career options with, for example, apprenticeship training? Plus, street kids didn't invent this black market system, so how about looking a bit higher up the chain o'command for Mr Big in Organized Crime? Who is organizing the trans-national drugs-trafficking transportation systems, for starts? - BC Mary.

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