GANGS BRING CRIME AND DRUGS TO ABBOTSFORD

Organized Crime Is Growing In Might As The Fraser Valley City
Expands. But Churches And The Community Are Fighting Back.

One night, the gangster and the church-goer came face-to-face.
Abbotsford youth worker Allan McLean received a call from a youth
telling him a mutual friend was in trouble with a gang.

"I called him and remained on the phone with him until I arrived at
his home. He was very depressed, drunk and stoned," the director of
the Youth For Christ C21 drop-in centre recalls.

After an hour, McLean had managed to calm the sobbing youth. But he
was shocked when, a few minutes later, three gang members arrived
carrying weapons.

"They were unaware that I was there and had full intentions of
killing [the teen]," he says.

One of the thugs stepped toward McLean and raised a crowbar over his head.

The Christian began to pray.

"They stopped," he says. "I managed to convince them to leave, and
they did." After 18 years as a youth worker in Abbotsford -- a city
that's known as both the heart of B.C.'s Bible Belt and the
birthplace of the UN Gang -- McLean moves easily between the pews and
the streets.

He's one of just a few.

"There's somewhat of a disconnect between the church and non-church
communities in this city," he admits.

Youth pastor Shawn McKnight agrees, saying churches do a "good job
with the youth we see, but we're not in all the places we should be,"
referring to less-affluent parts of the city.

Although he's been at Northview Community Church for less than a
year, McKnight says he heard the moniker "Bible Belt" before moving
from Ontario.

"This may be a church-saturated area, but that heritage, that
tradition, doesn't always translate into lifestyle," he says. "If
someone feels let down by the church, they may turn elsewhere for
acceptance." McLean sees some of those youth through his work at the
C21 centre.

"Gangs can offer money at such levels that [youth] can earn the same
money in one day as they could in a week or two of honest work," he
says. "The gang will call you friend when everything is fine, but as
soon as you get into trouble, especially with the law, you're on your
own." Linda Noble with the Youth Resource Centre, an Abbotsford
Community Services program, says teens are sometimes attracted to
gangs by the promise of easy money.

"If kids are hungry and they have no money, and someone offers them
$100 to make a drug delivery, they're going to take it," she says.
"Desperation is what draws kids -- emotional and financial." Noble
has also heard of youth being hired to trim marijuana plants for growers.

"Drugs play a huge part in it. We don't see a lot of kids in gangs,
but many are touched by the periphery," she says, adding those who
resist involvement usually have the benefit of positive relationships
in their lives.

Abbotsford school board trustee Sat Gill says the district is
planning a number of "asset development" workshops for the fall to
give students the skills to reject gang recruiters.

"Part of their reason for turning to gangs is that a need is not
being filled -- for companionship, for family, for love, whatever --
and they're finding it in a gang," he says. "We need to be
intentional about building a positive wall around our kids." Gill
said students who don't perform well at school tend to be more at
risk, while language problems can sometimes make the situation worse.
He'd like to see English-as-a-second-language training go beyond the
five years paid for by the province.

"If you don't understand what the teacher is telling you because you
don't know the language, you're going to look for a place to fit in
- -- and that can be as a drug runner, or if you're a big guy, as a
bodyguard," he says.

n Say "Abbotsford" and many people think farmers, family, bibles -- and bud.

Home to more than 80 churches, the rapidly-growing Fraser Valley
community is becoming known as a place with a crime problem. This
week, police arrested 13 people after a crackdown on open-air drug
trafficking at a city park just a few blocks away from an inner-city church.

The contradiction isn't lost on University of the Fraser Valley
criminologist Darryl Plecas.

"Abbotsford is a city now, in every sense of the word. It's not like
it used to be," he says.

If you look back a decade, Abbotsford and Matsqui, two distinct rural
municipalities before amalgamation in 1995, had an "incredibly low
and stable crime rate," notes Plecas.

But in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in crime, so
that Abbotsford and neighbouring Mission now have one of the highest
rates in all of Canada.

Plecas says the trend is not surprising or out of the ordinary for a
city experiencing extreme growth.

"If you look at any city in North America where there has been rapid
growth, you'll find crime rates increased compared to what they had
been," he says.

Add the fact that the UN Gang began in Abbotsford and you have
another reason for the problem.

Mayor George Ferguson blames social change for the city's problems.

"It's a whole different world now,' says the long-time mayor. "We
have all the crime that a big city has. I pick up the paper or I turn
on the radio, and I hear about shootings, someone being taken to the
hospital. It's a regular situation from Vancouver to Hope." The mayor
hopes construction of a new ice arena and recreation centre will
provide more opportunities for local youth, keeping them away from crime.

Mayoral candidate George Peary says he believes it's going to take a
united approach, with police, schools and community groups working
together to combat the city's reputation.

"Growth is a two-edged sword," he says. "We're certainly not immune
to the social ills." But Integrated Gang Task Force spokesman Sgt.
Shinder Kirk says no community is immune.

"If there is a market for the product -- drugs -- you're going to
find a gang presence, whether that's Vancouver or the Fraser Valley
or Vancouver Island," he says.

The veteran police officer says marijuana grown in the Lower Mainland
is in demand across the border.

"Certainly the foundation for many, if not all, of the gangs that we
see is that they . . have close ties to marijuana trafficking or the
growing of marijuana.

"It's confirmed that marijuana often goes south -- and to some extent
Ecstasy and meth -- and that marijuana acts almost as a currency in
the United States in that it fetches a certain price in exchange for
. . . cocaine or firearms." Kirk says Abbotsford's border crossing
may make it a more attractive location for criminals, but it's not an
unsurmountable obstacle for police. And he's not certain recent
drug-related shootings in the city are completely unprecedented.

In July, a 25-year-old Abbotsford man was found dead in an SUV at a
gas station.

Further investigation revealed he had been killed at a nearby grow-op.

Plecas says police have reason to be optimistic that violence may
soon be decreasing, with the reputed UN Gang leader Clayton Roueche,
an Abbotsford resident, currently facing trial in the U.S.

"It takes [police] a longer period of time to get these people, but
others will follow," he says. "What people should feel good about is
that we're starting to get the people at the top." One of the main
obstacles to police success is the light sentences given to B.C.
gangsters by the courts, says the criminologist. If Roueche is
convicted for allegedly importing more than a tonne of marijuana from
Canada into the U.S., in addition to huge quantities of cocaine, the
American courts could give him a life sentence.

"They're not going to let him off easy," says Plecas.

And on this side of the border, police are learning.

While 10 years ago there were only a handful of crime analysts in
B.C., there are now close to a hundred busy amassing intelligence on
gangsters and gangs.

"One day soon that will come tumbling down [on organized crime]," says Plecas.

"If I was a . . . criminal, I'd be moving out of B.C. right now."