OUR HOME AND VIOLENT LAND

A Recent Wave Of Gangland Shootings Across Canada Has Police And The
Public On Edge, Richard Foot Writes.

(CNS) Canada's cities are in the grip of a sharp, new cycle of gang
violence fuelled by the country's growing appetite for illicit drugs
and competition among the organized crime groups that supply them,
say police and other experts.

While organized crime wars are not new to Canada, a recent wave of
gangland shootings, from Halifax to Calgary to Vancouver, has
occurred alarmingly in public places, where citizens least expect
bullets to be flying.

The fear and outrage that settled on Toronto in 2005 when 15-year-old
Jane Creba was killed in a shootout in a downtown shopping area has
arrived in other cities, whose innocent citizens are being hit.

"We're going through a very significant cycle, where violence has
been extremely high," says Sgt. Shinder Kirk, spokesman for British
Columbia's Integrated Gang Task Force, a multi-agency police group.

"The public nature of this violence, the callous disregard for the
safety of anyone and everyone who may be in a public spot when the
shooting occurs, is a great concern to all of us."

Why are so many gang hits taking place in public spaces?

"Public shootings are a matter of convenience," says Robert Gordon, a
criminologist and gang specialist at Simon Fraser University.

"People aren't as easy targets as in the past, so gangs will follow
someone around in public until they can make a hit. They're not
concerned with collateral damage. All they care about is hitting the target."

"Gangs have become much bolder," says Charles Momy, president of the
Canadian Police Association. "Some cities look like they're under siege."

Across the country, local politicians and provincial leaders have
responded by convening news conferences and community meetings, where
citizens have expressed outrage at the shootings and the apparent
inability of police to control them.

Kash Heed, chief of the West Vancouver Police, recently called
gangland violence the city's most "pressing social problem" and
admitted that what police have been doing over the past five years to
control it "isn't working."

There have been eight gangland shooting incidents in Vancouver and
its once-bucolic suburbs since New Year's Eve. Four known crime
figures, all in their 20s, have been killed and others injured.

In Calgary last month, four people were killed including one
bystander, in two separate shootings.

In Halifax last November, gang members fired multiple shots into a
suburban pizza shop, and later traded gunfire on the street outside a
children's hospital in the city's downtown.

Drive-by gang shootouts have also occurred in recent months in
Winnipeg, Prince George, B.C., and on the Hobbema aboriginal reserve
in Alberta, where a 23-month-old toddler was hit by a stray bullet.

Montreal is also no stranger to gang warfare. Dozens of organized
crime suspects, allegedly connected to the cocaine trade, were
arrested Thursday in a police sweep across Montreal and Ottawa. It
also suffered through years of biker gang turf wars.

Mr. Momy says the Conservative government's new law introduced last
year, with tougher bail provisions and stiffer penalties for gang
crimes, hasn't produced the desired results.

"The new law isn't working," he says. "We're still seeing too many
cases where these guys are given bail, they're back on the street,
and they're offending all over again."