ANTI-GANG TASK FORCE TO BE B.C.'S BIGGEST YET

It Stands for Violence-Suppression Team and It Will Cross Police
Boundaries

The Lower Mainland's top cops stood united yesterday in their fight
against gang violence.

Twenty-two senior officers from the Mounties and municipal forces
stood shoulder-to-shoulder at a news conference at RCMP headquarters
to announce the creation of the Violence-Suppression Team -- VST -- to
combat the recent spate of gang violence.

"We stand here today, united and on common ground," RCMP Asst.
Commissioner Al MacIntyre said. "We want to disrupt, dismantle, not
just displace [gangs]."

Just one day after the Vancouver Police Department announced its own
gang task force, VPD Chief Const. Jim Chu said the VST involves more
police agencies.

He said intervention and awareness were keys. "We are merging our
resources to create the largest street-level gang-violence task force
B.C. has ever seen," Chu explained.

"We have to stop the killing. We must all work together -- police,
government and the criminal-justice system."

The 60-member VST will primarily be made up of VPD officers and will
be headed by Insp. Dean Robinson, currently in charge of the VPD's
gang-crime unit, who said the team will take a proactive,
"in-your-face" approach to the growing gang problem. VST members will
wear identifiable blue jackets and will hit the streets next week,
starting Nov. 14.

Robinson said members will visit the usual gang hangouts, such as
gyms, bars and restaurants, to target high-level gangsters.

"We're throwing the best people we have at this problem." he
said.

The announcement came just hours after Vancouver police were called to
the area near 70th Avenue and Granville Street, following reports of
shots fired. Investigators found three bullet casings, but were not
sure whether they were connected to Tuesday morning's shootings, which
left two men dead.

Ronal Shakeel Raj, 31, and Ali Abhari, 25, were shot to death through
a window of Raj's Mercedes after two SUVs boxed-in the vehicle.

The men's deaths bring the number of people killed in Vancouver this
year to 10. In total, 19 people have been killed in gang-style murders
in Metro Vancouver this year.

Supt. John Robin, officer in charge of the Integrated Gang Task Force,
said of the VST: "We are going to reach farther out than we have in
the past. The public needs to be reassured."

Robin added that because gangs and the illicit drug trade are so
closely entwined, the VST will focus on the drug trade.

"The growth has been exponential," Robin said. "These people are
sophisticated and know how we do business and that's a challenge. It's
not so much a change in direction, it's enhancement of direction."

In 2005, an RCMP report stated that Mounties could not deal with a
whopping 72 per cent of known organized-crime groups in B.C., because
of limited resources.

When asked yesterday if the force still lacked resources, Robin
said:

"Yes. We're only able to target 20 to 30 per cent at any one time.
These types of investigations are very resource-heavy."

In Vancouver yesterday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper also vowed to
get tough on gangsters.

He said he hoped to rush through legislation imposing mandatory jail
time for serious gun crimes and toughening bail rules for those
accused of gunplay.

"The recent murders in Surrey and Shaughnessy only underscore why all
the national parties campaigned in favour of tougher laws against
violent crime, and why the public is so fed up with the soft-on-crime
approach," said Harper.