FINDING FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

While on the subject of leaders who deliberately ill-inform the
public, can there be a sadder case than that of Edmonton police chief
John Lindsay?

In the spring, two veteran detectives charged that senior members of
the police department leaked information to the Hells Angels, and
Lindsay did little to investigate the allegations.

The charges inspired an investigation by the RCMP.

Lindsay, for his part, immediately filed a civil action in an attempt
to limit the scope of the Mounties' investigation of corruption into
his department.

While circling the wagons, Lindsay was forced to pull his head out of
the sand on the issue of gang activity in the City of Champions. With
nearly 20 gang-related shootings over the course of the summer,
Lindsay was finally forced to form a task force responsible for
dealing with the street war for control of the lucrative heroin and
cocaine trade.

Last week, barely two weeks after the formation of the gang task
force, Lindsay stood up in front of the media, and with a straight
face, announced the gang problem was in decline.

The bullets have been flying all summer in Edmonton. They are using
weapons like Mac-11 machine pistols. One drive-by shooting resulted in
a stray bullet narrowly missing a five-year-old girl in her bed.

Another dealer was hacked open by assailants with a meat cleaver and
there's the chief law enforcement officer for the city saying the
problem is in decline.

The Vietnamese gangs are duking it out with the Chinese. The native
thugs like the Red Alert and the Warriors are struggling for
recognition, while the West End Boys are doing their best to ensure
Darwin's legitimacy and Lindsay says everything's all right folks.

I spent an hour last week talking to a street cop who works out of
Edmonton's West Division. He told me, officially, there is no gang
problem in Edmonton. He then went on to tell me chapter and verse of
the problems he and his colleagues have trying to keep the lid on a
bubbling cauldron of organized crime wars trying to seize control of
the lucrative drug trade in the gateway to the north.

Considering every ounce of heroin or cocaine sold in Alberta
originates in Vancouver and one of the shooting victims this summer is
a suspect in a B.C. homicide, I'm thinking Lindsay had better extract
his head from his anal cavity.

Conversely, he may be trying to deflect attention from the allegations
made by the two detectives who, like Read and McAdam, are just trying
to do the right thing.

Jim Fisher, the Vancouver Police sergeant recently gagged by the RCMP
for doing his job, says the situation in Edmonton is identical, and
with some of the same players, as Vancouver had five years ago.

Organized crime is more prevalent in our cities -- all of our cities
- -- than ever before. It affects each one of us whether you realize it
or not.

The soldiers in the war against the forces of darkness are being
gagged, maligned or condemned.

Some of the people at the head of our governments, police forces and
civil service are protecting the bad guys and, frankly, I don't
understand why we are letting this happen.