MORE GANGS, MORE DRUGS, MORE GUNS

What Was Once Only a Big-City Phenomena Is Hitting Close to Home As
Police Find They Are Dealing With a New Breed of Criminal on the
Streets of Waterloo Region

The young men who push drugs on Waterloo Region's streets today are
increasingly sophisticated, better armed and more prone to violence.

They represent a new breed of street-gang foot soldier and they're
forcing local police to change their tactics.

That's the sober assessment of Staff Sgt. Daryl Goetz, the veteran
commander of the Waterloo regional police criminal intelligence unit.

Goetz and his officers have seen some notable changes of late in the
local drug trade, including some trends that make their job more
difficult and dangerous.

As police in Toronto turn up the pressure on gangs there, crooks
seeking safer havens to do their business have started moving out to
surrounding urban areas, including Waterloo Region -- an alarming
shift recently highlighted by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.

Police everywhere are being forced to co-operate more closely,
because "what's happening there is going to come here," Goetz said.

"When (police elsewhere) start jumping into a puddle, there's going
to be a ripple effect. It's going to splash into our area."

Observers in a cross-section of fields say former gang borders are
melting, affiliations are growing, and the stakes are rising.

While it's difficult to track the exact movements of gang members,
here's what police do know:

In the past year, at least 100 known gang members from other urban
areas have moved into Waterloo Region.

Some, including members of the Crips and Bloods gangs, will come here
on day trips to sell drugs, weapons or sex.

Others rent apartments and recruit locals to do their footwork.

Some target nightclubs, particularly illegal after-hours clubs, to
sell their products.

Most local bar owners don't want gangs selling to their customers,
and co-operate with police on this front, Goetz said. Some may report
known gang members if they see them, he said. Police also aren't
against sending undercover officers to do some late-night
club-hopping, he said.

As the rate of violent crime reported in Waterloo Region rises -- up
11 per cent, or 350 more reported incidents, last year -- police are
watching the growth of gangs closely.

They're a segment of society that often flies under the radar, Goetz
said. Most members go through the courts for drug or violence charges
with no record of their affiliation with a street gang, he said.

It's also difficult to put an exact number on street gang members in
the region, but it's easily several hundred, Goetz said. They are
predominantly young, unemployed and male -- although women are
growing within their ranks.

"Their numbers certainly aren't shrinking," Goetz said. "We are
seeing an increase in membership . . . and an increase in the level
of violence, somewhat."

Part of the increase in violence, according to Hal Mattson -- a
Kitchener-based criminal lawyer with 25 years experience -- has to do
with changes in the product. Marijuana and hashish have given way to
crack and cocaine over the years, and dealers need stronger
protection for their more valuable goods.

"There's a lot more guns," he said. "Because there's a lot more money
in it, and people need to protect themselves. . . . In the old days,
you had a couple of pounds of marijuana worth a couple of thousand
dollars. Now you've got a couple of kilos of coke, worth $60,000."

That's an assessment backed up by other local criminal lawyers, who
say drug dealing in Waterloo Region is a much more ruthless business
than it used to be.

"The drug scene is a tougher scene now, with heavier and harder
drugs. You're dealing with harder and tougher people doing the
supplying, and more pressure from above to pay off debts," said
Cambridge-based lawyer Bob Miller, a 40-year veteran of the courts.
"It's a nasty picture now."

In this environment, Goetz said it's no surprise today's weapon of
choice is quickly becoming the handgun, whereas chains, knives and
bats had been standard issue only 10 years ago.

He speculated that whoever got their hands on the loaded officer's
handgun stolen outside Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate in June -- which
has yet to be recovered -- would have had plenty of interested buyers
within city limits.

In the past three years, police in Toronto have launched five major
crackdowns on streets gangs. Police there don't doubt this stepped-up
approach to gangs is putting pressure on criminal networks. But hard
numbers on the movements of gang members are difficult to find.

"No one does a census of gang members. The evidence can only be
anecdotal," said Mark Pugash, a spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service.

Police across Ontario have had to adapt to a world where gang members
can transfer money easily and communicate with each other without
physical contact.

"Criminals are mobile. They're not restricted by geography or
boundaries of any kind," Pugash said. "The days when you had to speak
face to face are done."

Waterloo Region, however, has to date been spared the widespread
violent clashes between rival gangs that have occurred in Toronto and
other cities.

Neighbourhoods where residents are connected to each other and take
ownership of their communities is one of the most effective anti-gang
weapons cities have, Goetz said. That challenge, particularly for
densely populated neighbourhoods, will increase as the region's
population continues to grow.

"People have to let gang members know that that is their home, their
community, and they won't stand for criminals taking it over," he said.

"If gang members get the message that we do not accept gangs in our
neighbourhoods, that there are consequences to their actions, then
our job becomes easier. It's critical for us to have that community support."

Ben Tucci, the Cambridge city councillor whose ward includes the old
Galt core, thinks the gang infiltration issue is a "pending storm"
that can't be ignored.

"This is problem that Cambridge, Kitchener, and Waterloo are facing
whether they know it or not," he said. "When you've the kind of
police pressure we're seeing in other jurisdictions, it doesn't take
a rocket scientist to figure out the criminal element will start
moving into Waterloo Region."

The region's judges, he argues, have a reputation for handing out
softer sentences for drug dealers. Drug dealers are coming here
because they're not worried about a "slap on the wrist" from the
courts, Tucci claims.

Mattson and Miller, the criminal lawyers, don't agree: Mattson thinks
Toronto-area judges are more lenient because they're faced with
suspected crack dealers so often that sentencing them has become
routine. He argues sentences grow harsher away from larger urban centres.

Miller argues judges here aren't known for handing out light
sentences. Besides, "not many gang members think about the
consequences. There's a herd mentality . . . They're not going to
move to Listowel because sentencing is lighter there. That's a myth," he said.

Regardless, Tucci said a regional task force that would lead a
campaign to send a message that street gangs aren't welcome here is
needed. Made up of police, politicians of all stripes and ordinary
citizens, it could be modelled after a similar task force Perth
County established to target crystal meth.

"We need to open people's eyes . . . We need to start talking about
this problem. We can't just ignore it and assume we'll always be a
quiet community compared to the GTA," Tucci said.

Some of Tucci's constituents can speak to that reality: In
mid-September, more than a hundred downtown Galt residents packed a
public meeting to air their fears and frustrations over a plague of
crack dealing they say is infiltrating their community.

There has always been drug dealing in Cambridge, like other Waterloo
Region communities. But in recent months, it's been increasingly
thrust in the faces of residents by a wave of dealers who seem to be
getting bolder, those at the meeting said.

Through tears and shouts, the residents said they feel powerless to
stop the problem, and angry it's making some afraid to leave their
apartments. Others described being threatened by dealers whom they
dared to stand up to.

"It's seven days a week, morning, noon and night," according to Scot
Ferguson, one downtown resident who said he's had enough. "We want
these guys out."

There are already signs the stakes have risen for the young men who
run with street gangs.

While gangs as a rule generally don't report intergang violence to
police, Waterloo Region is witnessing an increase in armed,
person-on-person robberies. There have been several targeted
shootings and a fatal stabbing in recent months that police say
appear related to the drug trade -- a relatively new escalation of violence.

Local gang members are getting smarter, too.

"We're at a point where these guys have worked their way through the
court system and they're learning the tricks police use. They're
hiding their telltale signs. It used to be easier for us to identify
gang members, because they flaunted their colours," Goetz said.

They still display gang colours, jewelry and tattoos, but
increasingly only in private meetings, he said.

At ROOF, Kitchener's downtown youth shelter, gang members who drop in
are realizing their once-obscure symbols are not a very well-kept
secret, according to the centre's executive director Sandra Bell.

"We don't allow them to wear their colours. We tell them to cover up
if they want to come in," she said.

Gang members are learning they can't walk down King Street with a
virtual sign on their backs anymore, Goetz said. This makes the job
of the force's intelligence unit more difficult, and the reliance on
informants more important, he said.

In this environment, keeping an eye on gang graffiti has taken on a
key role. If a dealer's tag on a wall is crossed out by a rival, the
turf war that follows can lead to violence.

"It's no different than a bear marking a tree in the woods. So if we
see those signs getting crossed out, that's when we become concerned," he said.

Evidence of that rivalry isn't hard to find. In MySpace webpages and
on websites such as lounge37.com, local graffiti artists brandish
knives, trash-talk their enemies, and proclaim membership to street
gangs such as the Stick Up Kids.

The changing street gang landscape has caused local police to adapt.
Because "we can't go after them all," police here are focusing on
gang members who are known to have guns, Goetz said.

"Once we become aware someone has a gun, they become a magnet for our
attention," he said.

There's also more co-operation with anti-gang units in other cities,
recognizing that thugs care less and less about municipal boundaries.
In June, when Toronto police swooped down on the Driftwood Crips Gang
and made more than 60 arrests, 12 Waterloo regional officers helped out.

But it's an uphill climb: the growth in street gang membership in
Waterloo Region is part of a national trend -- Canada's youth gang
membership has swollen from 7,000 in 2002 to 11,000, according to one
report. The biggest drivers are poverty and cultural alienation,
according to the report's author, Michael Chettleburgh, who recently
published Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous World of Canadian Street Gangs.

If a community sees gangs infiltrating their streets, it's not
hopeless. Bill Davidson know this.

Thirty years ago, residents of Lang's Farm Village, a densely built
Cambridge neighbourhood, were frustrated by rising rates of crime and
vandalism.

So they created a drop-in centre and an after-school basketball
program. They gave their young residents, many from low-income homes,
something to be a part of, said Davidson, executive director of the
neighbourhood association behind it all.

The results were almost immediate: youth-related crime dropped noticeably.

"I don't think people deliberately throw their hands up. I think they
don't know what else to do," Davidson said. "I think people are at a
loss for innovative solutions."

Bored, disengaged youth who struggle academically are prime recruits
for street gangs, he said. That's why funding cuts to after-school
programs and drop-in centres made by previous provincial governments
are "catching up" with neighbourhoods in the form of growing criminal
problems, Davidson said.

Goetz sympathizes with neighbourhoods in Toronto, or elsewhere, that
have become overwhelmed by street gangs. But he insists that's not
happening in Waterloo Region, not on his watch.

"I think what happens is you get large communities where it becomes
so commonplace they give up and say 'What use is there?' " he said.

"We're not at that point here."

Police Get Boost

Waterloo regional police received a helping hand in their battle
against gangs this fall.

The province has given $580,000 to bolster the force's existing gang
unit, as part of a project that began Sept. 30, and will run until
March 2009. The money will allow the unit to add a sergeant, five
detectives and a crime analyst.

Some funds will also go to local agencies that hope to steer
teenagers away from a gang lifestyle, and to help set up a hotline
for residents to report suspected gang activity (519 650-8500, ext. 8730).

The goal is to reduce gangs, violence and gun crimes within Waterloo
Region. Police responded to 831 gun-related incidents between Jan.
2004 and Aug. 2005, and seized 1,382 firearms.