DRUG, GANG CONNECTIONS EXTEND PAST WHALLEY

The jokes are starting again. The 'Surrey isn't a safe place'
comments are all over the airwaves; Whalley is labelled as incredibly
dangerous. And the city's reputation takes another hit.

Now, the top priority is catching those who performed and ordered the
killings in an apartment on East Whalley Ring Road. As IHIT spokesman
Corporal Dale Carr so accurately puts it, no one deserves to die like
that - even if they are involved in the drug trade.

For many, though, the most disturbing aspect of the killings is the
deaths of Ed Schellenberg and Christopher Mohan, two innocent people
who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While all six deaths are a tragedy, the deaths of Schellenberg and
Mohan are the ones that have driven much of the media coverage. It
may not be politically correct to say, but many people are ambivalent
about people in the drug trade or gangs killing each other. When
innocents die, society becomes angry. People want answers, they want
an end to gang violence and they want it done now.

And they also take some comfort in being able to say it's an isolated
incident, that it happened in Whalley and won't happen anywhere else.

That, of course, is poppycock. The killings could have taken place
anywhere. There have been murders in Kitsilano that are gang-related
and there have been drug busts in upscale neighbourhoods. The problem
is not limited to Whalley. It's not a Whalley issue. Does anyone
think a poor crackhead could commit such an organized crime?

So let's not blame Whalley or marginalize it because it happened
there. In doing so, we're only fooling ourselves.