GANG ACTIVITY GROWING IN THE NORTH

Gang activity is growing in strength in the Northern B.C. region,
according to Mounties, just as it is growing in Prince George and in
the Lower Mainland. Violence is not expected to rise in an inordinate
way, but rise it will, if it follows the trends.

"There are 129 organized crime groups identified in B.C., seven of
whom are operating in the North," said North District RCMP
headquarters spokesman Const. Craig Douglass. "That number has
tripled since 2003 but we also have tracking systems that are much
better now so they have been here all along, or they might be recent
additions. It is hard to tell, but we are aware of them here."

The province has a police task force dedicated to undermining
organized crime gangs. RCMP Sgt. Shinder Kirk speaks for the unit and
he told The Citizen that these 129 groups are everything from three
or four people who work together in a crime venture on up to the most
organized and entrenched of them all, the B.C. Hells Angels.

In Prince George the three principal gangs are The Renegades
Motorcycle Club, The Crew and The Independent Soldiers, but there are
others with fingers into the northern capital and others operating in
Peace-country where oil and gas money is plentiful and the lifestyle
is often rough around the edges.

"I would certainly say it is growing to some extent, like the coming
in of the Independent Soldiers and groups from Alberta moving their
activities into the northeast," Douglass said. "There is an increased
amount of communication and co-operation among themselves, reaching
agreements and that sort of thing."

In spite of the relationships, many of the organized crime groups
aren't that organized, however. Police in Prince George have noticed
a lack of any loyalty among the low-level drug dealers and other
pawns on the street. A mercenary attitude seems to currently exist,
The Citizen was told, and that holds true in the regional scene as well.

"We find these groups aren't as structured, aren't that organized, it
is a loose group doing a loose set of things," Kirk said. "They are
often very fluid in their composition, in their makeup, in their
criminal activity. They use a group name as a means of doing
business, but it is not organized in the traditional sense of the
word. The outlaw motorcycle gangs are not that way; they are highly
organized. The Hells Angels are almost fanatically organized."

Douglass said much of the organized crime activity in the North is
based on trafficking in powder cocaine, crack and heroin and on the
growing of marijuana. On another level, Douglass said, the public has
to face organized crime in connection to the houses that get broken
into, the cars that get stolen, the bad cheques that are written, the
local people who get beaten up over $20 drug debts, the local girls
who are indentured into survival sex, the kids that drug dealers
approach on the school playground, etc. All of it is a result of
drugs, the flagship commodity in the gang industry.

With the opening of the Port of Prince Rupert, authorities are
expecting to see a marked increase in the North in drugs, weapons,
child pornography, slavery (sex- and extortion-based) and other
ultra-illegal activities gangs revel in although no tangible leads
have come to pass. Some of those activities were already going on in
Prince Rupert due to the old port, and it is an inevitable
circumstance wherever international shipping takes place, said the Mounties.

Douglass said Northern B.C.'s law enforcement officials, and there
are many other than the RCMP, meet on a regular basis to share
information and work together to fight organized crime. They have the
violent lessons of the Lower Mainland as a stark incentive to target
those criminal organizations.

"Typically they target each other (when violent), but that's not to
say people nearby can't get hurt," Douglass said.

Kirk said the financial stakes are so high and the people involved so
dysfunctional that total disregard for human life has been plainly
demonstrated many times over and northern residents need to know it
is coming to our communities too. However, both he and Douglass agree
that many regions have been successful in keeping organized crime at
bay. It takes the will and direct action of the public to do that.

"Everyone has a role to play in this - people who are out there
living their lives, trying to raise their children," Kirk said. "We
have a duty to report even the tidbits and nuggets that we might know
about crimes and the people doing crime. Get involved in doing that,
get involved in positive adult living so young people see that is the
way to live not these other ways to live, and by getting involved in
building a school group, a community association, a neighbourhood
watch, citizens on patrol... When you do these things, you put the
community in a position to notice this other stuff going on, and then
you report it."