GANG WARS GRIP METRO

Police Form Task Force After Fourth Slaying In Six Days

Vancouver homicide investigators are looking for potential links
between the four gangsters slain in separate targeted shootings
involving different crime groups over six days. And the spike in
gangland slayings in the city has led top Vancouver police department
officials to form a new gang violence task force that aims to get "in
the face" of suspected local gang members.

"We're obviously extremely concerned about this escalation of
violence and potential for innocent victims to be hurt and killed,"
Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard told reporters Tuesday.

"I would not say it's necessarily truly a gang war," he explained.

"There clearly is a conflict between two or more gangs right now....
It's not a classic dispute between one gang trying to take over the
territory of another gang."

The Vancouver shootings early Tuesday of 25-year-old Ali Abhari, a
well-known Persian gangster, and Ronal Shakeel Raj, a
lesser-recognized associate, are just the latest in a series across
Metro Vancouver that have shocked residents and left investigators
from several municipal and specialized forces scrambling.

The two men were in a Silver Mercedes leased by Raj, a trucker who
had at one time been linked to the United Nations gang, when they
were cut off by two SUVs on Granville Street at 70th Avenue and shot to death.

Police sources say Abhari, the passenger and a mid-level drug dealer,
was probably the target. Both men are believed to have been in a
downtown club and on their way home.

A friend of Raj's told The Vancouver Sun that the 31-year-old native
of Fiji was not involved in gang activity. "He was a good friend to
everyone and always wanted those around him to have a good time,"
said James Milacic.

"As for what the media says about it being a targeted incident, maybe
for the other person, I doubt it was for Shakeel," Milacic said.
"Shakeel was a very kind and caring person. ... The police are making
him out to be a gang member, and I assure you, he is not 'in' a gang."

Raj co-owned a Port Moody house assessed at $802,000, according to
property records and leased a Cadillac Escalade, in addition to the
Silver Mercedes in which he was killed.

Abhari, heavily tattooed with Persian script, was known to frequent
downtown nightspots and was an associate of a number of Persian
gangsters targeted in shootings across the Lower Mainland over the last year.

Insp. Mike Porteous of the Vancouver major crime section said it is
still early in the investigation of Tuesday's slayings, as well as
the Shaughnessy murder Saturday of Hong Chao (Raymond) Huang -- a top
crime boss of the notorious Big Circle Boys who was on the radar of
the RCMP nationally.

This week's flurry of gang killings began Halloween night, when a
51-year-old Richmond man Hiep Quang Do, was fatally shot at a
Vietnamese restaurant at 4884 Victoria Drive.

Porteous said police need the public to come forward with information.

"We take it very seriously. Even though it appears that the victims
were specifically targeted, I am not going to downplay the public
risk," Porteous said. "It is a super high priority for the police and
if anyone has seen anything call us."

Deputy Chief Bob Rich said the city's new gang violence task force
will redeploy patrol officers to try to stop the outbreak of fatal
shootings on city streets.

"The public should be aware there is no greater priority right now
than to deal with this issue," he said, adding the new patrol squad
will be "very much an in-your-face" unit.

"We will be confronting people who are gangsters moving about our
streets and we will be checking on where they live," said Rich, who
is in charge of operations section, including patrol officers.

"Today we want to send a very clear message to gang members that we
are going to be watching them very closely," he added. "We will be
letting them know that these activities are just not acceptable."

He promised Vancouverites "we are going to take every step to ensure
their safety," he added.

Asked how many officers will be assigned to the new unit, Rich said
details still are being worked out. "I have placed Supt. Andy Hobbs
in charge of putting this task force together," he said.

Rich added that Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu was meeting Tuesday
with other senior police leaders in Metro Vancouver to consider a
regional response to the brazen gang violence problem that has erupted lately.

Vancouver police are already part of B.C.'s Integrated Gang Task
Force, which was formed three years ago after another rash of gang shootings.

There has been increasing tension between a number of crime groups in
recent months as battles for drug turf heat up, especially between
the UN and another violent gang, the Independent Soldiers.

Four of the six men killed in the multiple homicide in Surrey Oct. 19
were linked to the Independent Soldiers. Two other victims were
innocent bystanders shot in the head, apparently to prevent them from
being witnesses.

"The violence that we are certainly seeing today is directly
attributable to control of the drug trade," said RCMP Insp. Brian
Cantera of the Greater Vancouver Drug Section.

The two main local products are marijuana and methamphetamine,
Cantera said, which are being sold for cocaine and guns and money,
whether by street gangsters or big players such as Huang.

"That's how organized crime operates to control that trade."

LePard said some romanticize gang life. "I was at the scene this
morning," he said of the south Granville scene. "Those who think the
gang lifestyle is appealing, looking at these two men, full of bullet
holes, they didn't look glamorous at all."

He said gang members are making tens of thousands of dollars a week,
own fancy cars, live in penthouse apartments and spend a lot of money
on drugs and women.

"They make a lot of money and spend a lot of money," LePard said.
"They live for today." That's because they often don't live long, he said.

RCMP Supt. John Robin, head of the Integrated Gang Task Force, said
Metro Vancouver is a North American centre for the drug trade and
inevitably faces gangland violence.

He said police are on top of the issue, but valuable resources are
sidetracked by the increasing demands of disclosure once cases go to court.

Legislative changes may be needed to deal with the problem, Robin said.

Large court cases with multiple defendants are even more difficult to
process. "The whole court process is sucking up resources," he said.
"So many of our police resources are sucked up with the disclosure process."

RCMP Supt. Wayne Rideout, head of the Integrated Homicide
Investigation Team, said that in a metropolitan area of 2.6 million,
a small number of gangsters are causing most of the problem.

"There are 300 or 400 people who are creating all of the crime. We
need to get serious about those people. The police are serious ...
the community has got to get involved in this and we have got to have
a no-tolerance policy."

Rideout said most of those involved in organized crime are not rich
- -- they are partying away their money and must use violence as a way
to maintain their position on the totem pole.

"It is all a house of cards. So they stay on top with violence, by
intimidation, by this illusion they create," he said. "The violence
itself is what creates the hierarchy today, especially among the
mid-level guys."

But there is also the revolving-door problem -- people prosecuted who
get out and are right back at it or even committing violent crimes
while on bail.

"This is the inherent core problem with what is going on -- the
sterile environment of a courtroom versus the reality of the street,"
Rideout said.

"We have got a generation of police officers that say 'Holy, how long
do I keep this fight up for?'... They are working night and day and
they are giving up time with their families."

He also said the disclosure requirements are now so onerous that
sometimes the Crown decides not to proceed at all.

"You could be disclosing a million pages of documents for one machine
gun," Rideout said, adding that defence lawyers often use disclosure
requirements as a strategy to bog down cases.

He said the murder rates are relatively steady across Metro
Vancouver, but the number of shootings related to organized crime is way up.

And more people who are critically wounded by gunfire are surviving
than just a few years ago because of quality health care.

"It is not the murder stats that are up, it is the attempted murder,
the aggravated assaults and the shootings that are way up," he said.