CULTIVATING VIOLENCE

Abbotsford police are investigating after finding a man shot outside
a grow-op on Harris Road Monday night.

Police responded to reports of gunfire around 11:30 p.m. in the 34200
block of Harris Road and found a man suffering from gunshot wounds,
said Const. Ian MacDonald.

The 28-year-old man, who is known to police, was shot in the right
foot, said MacDonald.

When officers fanned out to look for other potential victims or
suspects, they discovered a marijuana grow operation in a house nearby.

Investigators are looking to establish how the injured man is linked
to the home, said MacDonald.

"We believe he has some connection, but we don't yet know what the
nature of that connection is."

The injured man does not live in the house, which does not have an
extensive history with police, said MacDonald.

Investigators still have to determine where the man was shot as he
was discovered out on the road.

The injured man, who was transported to hospital, is not saying what happened.

"We're attempting to get more details from him, but he's not being
entirely co-operative, so it's difficult to piece together what
happened," said MacDonald.

Police don't believe the shooting is random and it once again
illustrates the inherent dangers associated with those involved with
drugs at any level, he added.

Monday's shooting is the third violent incident in Abbotsford
associated with a marijuana grow-op in the space of a month.

Darryl Plecas, director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research
at the University of Fraser Valley, said there is no question
violence associated with marijuana grow operations is on the rise.

Violent grow rips, gun play and gangs are fundamentally linked to the
increased number of marijuana grow-ops in B.C. over the last decade.

"We've had an explosion in gang activity that mirrors the explosion
in grows," said Plecas.

"If you went back 15 years you almost never had these home invasions.
Now we have gangs that don't "grow" but they "rip," that's their
primary occupation," said Plecas.

Most of the home invasions linked to ripping off marijuana grow
operations are never reported to police.

The increase in violence associated with grow operations is the
result of a number of pressures: more sophisticated enforcement,
fewer grow operations, and an increased number of armed competitors.

While there are individual or loosely connected players, the
marijuana industry is dominated by organized crime, he said.

"The people who are driving the marijuana grow industry - those
responsible for the collection, distribution and export - are high
level organized crime."

B.C. bud goes south while guns and hard drugs come north.

"It allows organized crime to get into the distribution of cocaine
like never before. B.C. has become a transit point for those drugs."

Those who tout decriminalization as means to end violence associated
with marijuana trade are dreaming.

"You'd have to ask them what they were smoking," he said.

It's the U.S. market that makes marijuana so profitable.

"It's an export market that allows people to deal in cocaine and more
profitably than ever before."

A DANGEROUS BUSINESS

- - Sept. 28: A 28-year-old man known to police was found shot in the
foot outside a home housing a grow-op in the 34200 block of Harris
Road. He did not co-operate with investigators.

- - Sept. 10: A house in the 34700 block of Hamon Drive was shot up in
the early morning, apparently by a person who failed to rip off the
marijuana grow-op inside.

- - Aug. 25: Two teen boys were beaten by a number of suspects during a
grow rip in a home housing a marijuana operation in the 2400 block of
Sunvalley Crescent.

- - Jan. 22: Robert Tupniak, 42, was found by police with gunshot
wounds to his torso, sprawled in the driveway of a rural home on
Huntingdon Road that was housing a marijuana grow operation. The
shooting was part of a grow rip, and Tupniak had also been bound with
zap straps and beaten.

- - July 22, 2008: Dustin Lee Wester, 22, died at a gas station on Mt.
Lehman Road. Police discovered he was shot at a farmhouse on
Townshipline Road which was housing a large marijuana grow operation.