SKID-ROW SLAYING LINKED TO DRUG WAR

Cops Tie Death To Dealers' Battle To Control Turf

Mark Allen Bowe was a victim of the violent struggle to control the
drug trade in the Downtown Eastside.

Bowe, 40, died in hospital Tuesday after being shot in the head at
close range Monday night in the 100-block West Hastings.

Police say his death appears to be related to an ongoing turf war
among dealers to control the street-level drug trade in the area of
Abbott and Hastings.

It's not clear if Bowe was selling or buying drugs or was in the
wrong place at the wrong time, but Vancouver police Const. Tim
Fanning said there are people who may be able to shed light on his murder.

"Somebody was there, somebody knows who pulled the trigger," he said.

It is rumoured that Jamaican gangsters are currently taking a run at
the crack-cocaine market in the Abbott and Hastings area.

But Insp. John McKay, head of the Citywide Enforcement Team, said
dealers come from all races.

They might be Caucasian, Vietnamese, Hispanic, Persian . . . the list
goes on, and membership is not exclusive to race, McKay said. The
drug market is defined on a block-by-block basis.

"They're not strictly cultural. They're a culturally diverse
organized-crime gang," he said. "There's not one dominant group.
They're all over."

An estimated 7,800 drug addicts live in the Downtown Eastside and
"someone has to supply those people with drugs," he said.

A recent study of street-level trafficking by Insp. Kash Heed, former
head of the police drug section, found that the average dealer
arrested in the Downtown Eastside between 2001 and 2002 was
Canadian-born, between 23 and 45 and was selling to supplement a
welfare cheque.

Nearly three-quarters (73.5 per cent) had previous arrests for drug offences.

Bowe was due in court next week to face charges of assault, assault
causing bodily harm, robbery and unlawful confinement arising from a
March 2005 incident. Warrants are out for the arrest of his
co-accused, Tyler Eric Thompson.

Bowe was also arrested and charged with possession for the purpose of
trafficking in 2004. Those charges were stayed in August 2005.