NOWHERE FOR GANGS TO HIDE

Last weekend was intended to be uncomfortable for people involved in
criminal gang activities in Kelowna and Vernon.

That's because members of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement
Unit's Gang Task Force (CFSEU) took to the streets in both
communities, with the local media in tow.

Equipped with blacked out specially equipped cruisers and Suburbans,
dressed and armed like members of a SWAT team, CFSEU members were
joined by local RCMP officers to search for suspected gang members.

The CFSEU is an umbrella organization for the gang task force, made up
of uniformed and undercover members from the ranks of the RCMP,
municipal police services and transit authority police in B.C.

The gang task force was created to combat the ever growing gang
activity and violence occurring in many B.C. communities, both in the
Lower Mainland and in the Interior.

The unit routinely goes after known and suspected gang members, trying
to prevent gang violence by confiscating their weapons and drugs.

While the initial focus was on the Lower Mainland, CFSEU members have
now begun creating a higher profile in communities like Vernon and
Kelowna, due to the presence of gang-related criminal activities.

Last weekend, the CFSEU specially trained officers came to Kelowna to
collect information on gang growth in the city, as well as to interact
with gang members on their home turf.

The unit members moved fast throughout the city in mini convoys,
combing the streets, bars and other areas where gang members were
known to frequent.

As they searched, they were constantly looking for and running the
license plates of certain expensive vehicles that are becoming a
status trademark of gang members, routinely pulling such vehicles over
to be searched for drugs, weapons and large amounts of cash.

These stop checks of vehicles do not always give police reasons for
arrest, as infractions may only be minor in nature, but can be used to
keep tabs on known gang members and their subsequent movements around
the province.

While out doing their patrols, members of the gang task force will
often gather at local nightclubs, bars and restaurants throughout the
night to do a walk-through, looking for gang members known to them.

The three nights that CFSEU was in the Interior can be viewed as a
wake-up call to both local and outside gang members, sending a message
that law enforcement won't sit idly by while they attempt to set up
shop in smaller Interior communities.

Task force member Cpl. Eldon Orregaard said: "The main message we want
to send is that if they are moving out here because they don't like
the pressure in the Lower Mainland, then we're going to come out here
and we're going to find them here."

The time the unit spent in Kelowna resulted in identifying several
former Lower Mainland-based gang members or associates, as well as the
confiscation of small amounts of drugs and cash, and identification of
the local gang networks.

The information on gangs and gang activity gathered by the unit's
visit to Kelowna is entered into a database that can be used by law
enforcement not only in B.C. but across Canada.

The CFSEU members plan to make regular visits to Kelowna and other
Interior cities in the future to combat gang expansion and the
violence and drug dealing that often accompanies it.