POLICE DENT GANG ACTIVITY

Organized crime in Prince George has taken several high-profile blows
in the past year, according to local police.

The first was in January when six members of the Renegades motorcycle
club and four members of the Hells Angels were arrested and charged in
an RCMP operation.

That was followed by the death of the Renegades president Billy Moore,
and the arrest and charging of other Renegades members for unrelated
allegations.

Alongside the Renegades, local police have also been charging members
of a group called the Crew and disrupting its drug activities and
associated crimes.

Members of The Renegades and the Crew are linked to the Hells Angels,
according to local police. They are the only two organized
crime-associated groups reportedly working in the Prince George area
and despite the recent police successes, their business is alive and
well.

"We've been pretty successful. We've hit quite a few, but they have a
lot of fingers in the community, some in legitimate business
activities," said Sgt. Tom Bethune of the Prince George RCMP's drug
section. "More kids are coming along all the time, but we have put a
dent in it I think. Every time we have success it makes us stronger.
It teaches us more about how they operate, who they associate with, it
helps our credibility with the courts, and we are only going to keep
at them."

Bethune wishes the public would step up and help a little more. The
police, he said, have done much to keep organized crime out of town -
even disrupting what they feel was a direct attempt to establish a
Hells Angels clubhouse in the city - but members of the Prince George
public continue to do business with known members of these groups. He
singles out landlords, vehicle retailers and taxi drivers as examples
of people who pretend not to notice the signs of their clients' shady
business.

"They are enablers," Bethune said of these people in the public.
"These people could not do their business if they couldn't buy a car
or couldn't rent an apartment or couldn't get a taxi ride. Why do the
bars allow these guys to come in, congregate in their establishment
and do their business there? You can refuse their business."

Some fear reprisals for standing up to Renegades and Crew
members.

"I guess we all have to take a stand," Bethune replied. "They thrive
on not having to do things to people because they already have
intimidation working for them. They will succeed if they are allowed
to intimidate you. I can tell you this, if a bar owner called the
police and said an organized crime group was in his place doing
business, that bar owner would find that he would have the full
co-operation of the police."

He also put the responsibility on patrons of places where organized
crime members frequent to ask the owners of those establishments why
that was allowed to happen.

"Organized crime is on the rise in Prince George," Bethune said. "A
number of years not that long ago, the drug activity was spread around
several groups but now all of it - all of it - is somehow affiliated
with the Hells Angels ... Sooner or later the public will get fed up
with it and realize they have the power to run these guys out of town,
but I personally fear it is probably going to take something like what
happened in Quebec where a six-year-old boy was killed in the crossfire."

This year alone, police say, the drug world has been responsible for
at least five homicides, two burned houses, numerous beatings and the
cutting off of some fingers. The victims were all community members
who could not keep up with the spiral of drugs. Those still spinning
are the ones responsible for the majority of break-and-enters, car
thefts, shoplifting, armed robberies and beatings across the city -
all to get quick money for a quick drug fix. The drugs they get from
organized crime.

"It is supply and demand, but make no mistake, organized crime
promotes its business," said Bethune. "If organized crime was taken
out of the picture, there would be fewer drug addicts, fewer beatings,
fewer break-and-enters, fewer businesses being robbed. It is not
automatic that someone else would just fill the void. Not at all.
Addicts can be helped, but organized crime is out to hurt everybody
they can because it makes them money."