WAR IS HELL AND IT'S HERE

Anyone who shrugged off organized crime in Prince George as a problem
only for those involved in it received a harsh lesson this week.

A 19-year-old man is in critical condition under police watch after he
was struck in a hail of gunfire in a battle between rival gangs
downtown on Dominion Street about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Opening fire on a busy downtown street in broad daylight obviously
doesn't faze this new breed of thug.

Nor does the possibility of killing an innocent bystander or
two.

Three people were charged Friday in connection with the shootout.
That's a relief, but three people is a drop in the bucket when you're
talking about the depth and breadth of Prince George's drugs-and-crime
underworld, which consists of three gangs fighting for supremacy.

Wednesday's incident was this year's second daylight shooting in the
public place. On Jan. 24, 21-year-old Mitch Henry was shot and killed
in the parking lot of Moxie's restaurant minutes after he ate lunch
there.

On Christmas Eve, three rival gangs converged on the parking lot at a
busy Pine Centre Mall in what sounds like a scene from a movie. A
brawl ensued after a drug deal went bad, a man was stabbed and $100
bills were sent flying through the air.

There are bloodthirsty degenerates among us and they're becoming more
brazen.

Three people in their early 20s are in jail for their roles in
carrying out brutal attacks on gang underlings who didn't pay their
drug debts. They cut off fingers of one crack-addicted "employee" and
another was brutalized with head wounds from an axe attack.

Just last week, police discovered a man shackled in a crack house
basement torture chamber. Police say victims are tortured and beaten,
sometimes for days, for failing to pay drug debts of as little as $100.

And the victims are scared to death to tell police because death is
exactly what they fear.

Police and merchants agree violent crime has been on an upswing in
recent months, brought on, police say, by an internal power struggle
within the newest gang to hit local streets, the Independent Soldiers.

There is the chance the publicity and community outrage this week's
shooting has generated will force the gangs to tone down their
tactics. Call it wishful thinking.

It's a gang war and anyone could literally be in the
crossfire.

The RCMP with its dedicated gang task force is doing what it can in
the short term, but this problem needs a new, aggressive philosophy
for the long term.

Candidates for this fall's mayoral and council races had better come
prepared.