ANTI-GANG MESSAGE HITS HOME IN ABBOTSFORD

Middle School Students Warned By Police That Making 'small Bad
Choices' Could Lead Them Down A Deadly Path

Middle school students at Abbotsford's Mennonite Educational Institute
had an unusual quiz Tuesday.

"What are the main two gangs operating in Abbotsford?" Abbotsford
Police Chief Bob Rich asked.

"Bacon brothers," a Grade 6 student shouted.

"They are leaders of what gang? Does anybody know?" Rich
continued.

"Oh ... Red Scorpions!" another Grade 6 student called
out.

"Red Scorpions it is. Well done," Rich said.

Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon were not the only gang-linked
Abbotsford residents mentioned by the students.

The 11-to 14-year-olds also named the United Nations gang as being
active in the Fraser Valley city. And they seemed to know all about
one of B.C.'s biggest gangs -- the Hells Angels.

The quiz was part of the Abbotsford Police Department's Operation
Impact, an anti-gang campaign directed at students across the school
district.

The program started with older secondary students last September and
has now moved into the middle schools in order to educate even younger
students on the perils of gang life. By next week, police will have
addressed 11,000 students in the district.

Rich warned hundreds of kids packed into the school's auditorium
Tuesday that "small bad choices" made at their age could lead them
down a deadly path.

He explained that two Grade 12 students from nearby Mouat secondary
were not perceived to be at risk when they were shot to death in May
2009.

"They were barely involved in the drug world and they were
murdered,"

Rich said.

He showed real-life newspaper headlines about young B.C. people
murdered or jailed for their involvement in gangs and the drug trade.

But Rich and Sgt. Mike Novakowski used more humour than fear mongering
in their hour-long talk to the kids.

"Do you think you'd find a poster on a telephone pole that says 'Would
you like to join the Hells Angels? We have great dental benefits in
our gang'." Rich said.

"No," the students erupted in unison, laughing.

Rich described the difficult 2009 the city had with a record number of
gang murders.

"In Abbotsford last year, we had

11 murders. And that is a ridiculous amount of murders. Eight of them
were people involved in gangs and drugs," Rich said. "We will be, when
the stats come out for 2009, the murder capital of Canada. That's not
good."

It was in fact the tragic and still unsolved murder of the two Mouat
students that sparked the anti-gang awareness campaign by Abbotsford
police. There was a frank public meeting in May 2009, where Rich said
the teens and two others recently killed were all targeted for their
perceived link to the Red Scorpions.

Then there was an anti-gang poster campaign called Operation Tarnish,
commercials filmed locally in the Operation Veritas campaign and now
the continuing school talks.

Const. Ian Macdonald said the message is deliberately different with
the younger students, who are not jaded against police. In fact,
Tuesday's program began with a contest in which volunteers got to put
on bulletproof vests, handcuff teachers and later spray "mace" that
was really Silly String.

Novakowski, who has produced the posters and video messages, said
police have been able to look back on the early lives of some of
Abbotsford's most notorious gang members to see what they had in
common as youth.

"These guys were bullies in school," Novakowski said, urging kids to
stand up to bullies.

The enthusiastic crowd applauded loudly after the presentation.

Grade 8 student Lexi Nickel said the information was useful. "We all
just have to make our own choices to do the right thing," Nickel said.

Grade 6 student Matthew Alderson said he wasn't disturbed to hear
about the shootings and murders because the final message was very
positive.

"I really liked how he explained we all have to make choices in life
and what we have to do and what we have to avoid," Alderson said. "I
think it can help us to make better choices in life -- to learn what
to do and what not to do."