JUSTICE PREVAILS

A drug debt, all of $170, results in a young man having a finger cut
off with a knife. The severed finger is then placed in a small box and
presented to the victim's girlfriend.

Another man who owes $300 in drug money is beaten about the head with
an axe as he's running for his life down the hallway of a home.

Yet another man also comes up short in his payment for the crack he
had been ordered to sell. He is kicked and repeatedly hit with a
Taser, despite the victim's pleas for more time to get the money. The
incident is recorded on a video camera, presumably to be used as an
instructional video to show other employees what will happen if you
don't pay up in full.

What reads like a Quentin Tarantino screenplay without the sharp
dialogue and dark humour is actually life in Prince George's
underworld, where even the most insignificant debts are treated with
brutal authority.

Control by intimidation and extreme violence is the method employed by
higher-ranking members of the Crew -- a local criminal organization
involved in the distribution and sale of crack cocaine -- to ensure
discipline among their drug-running, addicted underlings.

That's the picture that emerged at three trials this year, the third
of which concluded Thursday with the sentencing of Scott Brian Payne,
24, to eight years in prison for two counts of extortion, in both
cases the use of violence to collect drug money.

Court heard that on Nov. 14, 2004, Payne cut off the finger of one of
the Crew's low-level employees for the victim's shortfall of $170.

Mr. Justice Glen Parrett also determined Payne was present on Sept. 4,
2005 when Alia Brianne Pierini, then only 20, attacked another
crack-addicted employee with a "medieval battleaxe" before the victim
was kicked mercilessly and tasered. His crime: he came up $300 short
from the supply of crack he was distributing.

Pierini was sentenced in January to five years in prison for two
counts of extortion.

The third accused, Matthew Jordan Garfield, 20, was sentenced in July
to 38 months in prison for two counts of extortion.

The sentences represent a small but not insignificant victory for
local law enforcement, which has been on the trail of the Crew since
the spring of 2003. RCMP in Prince George has had a special task force
dealing exclusively with the Crew since October 2004. It's reflective
of just how pervasive the Crew and its tentacles have become in this
city.

Says RCMP Sgt. Tom Bethune: "The VLA is the way it is because of the
Renegades (another organized crime group), the Crew and the slum
landlords turning a blind eye."

The conviction and sentencing of Payne, Pierini and Garfield were
possible only because their victims had the courage to come forward.

They're The Exceptions.

Most victims are terrified to go to police because they fear gruesome
consequences.

Bethune tells of one man who suffered two broken legs, but no charges
resulted because he wouldn't talk. Another recently had an arm broken
in broad daylight in a park with two horrified women watching. When
asked by police what happened, he said, "I fell."

The satisfaction for police in getting the likes of Payne, Pierini and
Garfield off the streets is dampened by the probability that three
others within the Crew will replace them.

However, the success in these cases tells others trapped in the
organization's lower echelons that there is a way out and justice can
prevail.

Just as Thursday's eight-year sentence for Payne sends the message
that these types of crimes will be dealt with harshly, so, hopefully,
will the now-publicized methods of brutality used in the local drug
world be a deterrent to those heading down that path.

The entire community should be made aware of the chilling viciousness
that goes on in our midst. Only then, through everyone's understanding
and co-operation, do we have even a chance to get rid of it.

Editor

Dave Paulson