RISE OF GANGS WAS PREDICTED 20 YEARS AGO

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. -- Life goes on in Canada's new murder
capital.

"Meh," replied one young woman when I asked if she was worried that
violent thugs had taken over this once-sleepy farming town, an hour
east of Vancouver. "Gangsters are idiots."

Abbotsford may seem a surprising crime hotspot. It's the buckle of
B.C.'s Bible Belt, an absurdly prosperous community built by stern,
industrious Mennonite and Sikh farmers and entrepreneurs.

Churches -- or in some cases Gurdwaras -- stand vigil over virtually
every neighbourhood. Private, religious schools with names like
Mennonite Educational Institute, Cornerstone Christian School and
Dasmesh Punjabi School seem to outnumber the public ones.

Life seems orderly, tidy and busy. Stepford-like, almost.

That's probably why the city is getting so much media attention after
Statistics Canada revealed that in 2008 the clean, serene
Abbotsford/Mission area had the highest homicide rate in Canada, at
4.7 per 100,000 people.

That's considerably higher than rough-around-the-edges Edmonton's
homicide rate, which at 3.4 per 100,000 was tied with Kelowna, B.C.
for fourth place. Winnipeg was second with 4.1 while Regina was third
at 3.8.

Nationwide, the homicide rate was only 1.8 per 100,000.

Abbotsford's dubious status was front-page news across the Lower
Mainland, sending the mayor and police chief into full damage-control
mode.

Mayor George Peary was quick to point out that most of the killings
are linked to a vicious turf war between rival criminal gangs.

"The general population is not at risk," he told a local newspaper.
"These are young men who for the most part willingly became involved
in illicit activity and then they were targeted by rivals."

Meanwhile, Police Chief Bob Rich said his department's top priority
this year is to end the gang violence.

He has his work cut out. The city had six homicides last year, four of
which were gang related. Mission, across the Fraser River but part of
the census metropolitan area, had four.

In the first seven months of 2009, Abbotsford has already had seven
slayings, five of which are tied to gangs.

The question that nobody seems able to answer is how conservative,
God-fearing Abbotsford became ground zero for a blood-soaked gang war?

Dozens of lives have been lost across metro Vancouver in recent years
as two gangs, the Red Scorpions and the UN Gang, have traded shots
over the region's drug and weapons trade.

The leaders of both factions have deep roots in Abbotsford.

The Bacon brothers -- Jonathan, Jarred and Jamie -- are linked to the
Scorpions. Some say they ran the gang after its founder, Michael Le,
fled the country to avoid charges in connection with the slaughter of
six people in 2007.

UN gang founder Clay Roueche, who is currently in a U.S. jail awaiting
trafficking charges, also grew up in Abbotsford.

Some suggest that it's just the big city making its way out to the
suburbs. As the area's population exceeded 160,000, drug dealers moved
in and started fighting over their share of the new market.

But others say this war was two decades in the making. Back in the
early 1990s, police issued a warning about two groups of middle-class
kids from "good" families who had gotten involved in the drug trade.
Cops warned that if their activities weren't checked, it could erupt
into violence.

One of the kids the police warned the public about 19 years ago, Billy
Rai, was gunned down June 30.