VANCOUVER KILLINGS SHOCK EVEN GANGSTERS, SAY POLICE

VANCOUVER -- Twelve shootings in 16 days, including the slaying of a
young mother driving with her four-year-old son in the back seat, have
many Metro Vancouver residents on edge. The violence has been so
brazen that police say even some of those involved in the gangland
underworld blamed for most of the deaths are co-operating with police.

RCMP Cpl. Peter Thiessen said Wednesday officers have received about
50 tips over the past three days pertaining to the string of shootings.

Of those tips, he said two in particular may prove
vital.

"I received some direct contact from two individuals that maintain
they have been in the gang culture for quite a period of time,"
Thiessen said. "They want to try and assist us in any way they can."

Thiessen stressed that the calls have to be followed up to determine
their validity, accuracy and potential value.

"But on the surface, that's encouraging," he said.

It was the death of Nicole Marie Alemy, 23, while driving her
husband's Cadillac in suburban Surrey on Monday that seemed to tip the
balance.

Alemy's four-year-old son was in the back of the vehicle when police
found her slumped over the steering wheel.

Darryl Plecas, a criminology professor at the University of the Fraser
Valley in Abbotsford, B.C., said the increase in shootings can be
linked to the drug market's very own recession.

"The drug market exploded up until a couple of years ago, which
explains why all of a sudden we had so many gangs, so many people
wanting to get in on the action," Plecas said.

But in the last couple of years that drug market has shrunk, he
said.

"So if you have more people vying for the same market share, then we
should expect there's going to be turf wars going on."

On Tuesday, federal Solicitor General Peter Van Loan labelled Metro
Vancouver the country's gang capital.

Plecas said that's not surprising.

"This is where the grows (marijuana growing operations) started. You
can't have 20,000 plus grows and not have some fallout," he said.

Robert Gordon, director of the criminology department at Simon Fraser
University, said Metro Vancouver's geographical location near the U.S.
border plays a major role in organized crime activity.

Gordon said the illegal drug trade in the region was destabilized when
police cracked down on one particular group located in the Fraser Valley.

"That would have created a vacuum in the industry," he said. "There
may be manoeuvring going on to grab market share."

Gordon said such violent spurts are cyclical and pointed to an
increase in gang activity in the fall of 2007, accentuated by a
six-person slaying in a Surrey apartment building.

Five years earlier Vancouver and environs saw a spate of targeted
killings that involved victims burned in their cars after being shot.

Meanwhile, Vancouver police released the name of the man shot dead in
the city's latest gun fatality.

Shane Messent, 24, died Tuesday in what police believe was an
attempted home invasion.