GANG VIOLENCE. TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

Solicitor-General Urges Tougher Sentences For Thugs Who Open Fire In Public

Gangland gunfire rang out in the Vancouver area this week, revealing
victims and suspects having links to the Hells Angels, as well as
Asian and Indo-Canadian gangs.

While the brazen public shootings -- one near two public schools in
Langley, another at the upscale Quattro restaurant in a neighbourhood
of million-dollar homes on Vancouver's west side -- shocked
law-abiding citizens, police offered assurances the incidents appear
to be unrelated and not part of a gang war.

Vancouver's new police Chief Jim Chu said the recent spate of
shootings appear to be just a "spike" of incidents that don't appear
to be a trend. At least not yet, he added.

The problem, police said, is too many gang members are packing guns
for protection and are prepared to use them to settle personal scores
and "business" disputes -- police estimate 90 per cent of gangs are
linked to the illegal drug trade, especially B.C.-grown marijuana,
which is is being shipped across the U.S. border in exchange for
cash, cocaine and firearms.

Those responsible for opening fire in public places like schoolyards
or restaurants should face stiffer prison terms, Solicitor-General
John Les said Friday.

Asked if the fact a shooting occurs in a crowded public location
should be considered at sentencing, Les told The Vancouver Sun: "I
would be behind something like that 1,000 per cent."

"The whole concept of aggravating factors being taken into
consideration at the time of sentencing is of course not unusual in
the Criminal Code," Les said.

Like everyone else, Les said he was shocked by the public displays of
gunfire this week, particularly the Langley one near two schools as
students were arriving.

"The one we had this week with a shooting going on amongst kids on
the way to school is a particularly disgusting manifestation of this
kind of unacceptable behaviour," Les said.

While there is some risk to the public, he said, people should
remember that most of those involved are criminals.

"The thing I notice, and I hope the public notices as well, whenever
we see these gang-like shootings, is that invariably it seems that
both the victim and the perpetrators are known to police, and
secondly, known to one another," he said.

"So I guess the bottom line is, if you are a law-abiding citizen and
your people are law-abiding people, there is actually very, very
little to be concerned about.

"There is no question that there is potential there for unintended
consequences and the public to be in some danger."

The gang problem appears to be growing -- the number of gangs in B.C.
increased for the third year in a row, said 2007 police intelligence
figures released to The Sun this week.

Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, who heads the RCMP's Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
unit, said this week's displays of violence indicate a complete
contempt for public safety, which is what is most startling about
these crime groups.

When gun-toting criminals opened fire at a Hells Angels associate
near two Langley schools, so many other innocents were put at risk, he said.

Len Pelletier was driving a Hummer when the gunmen started chasing him.

"What if someone else was bringing their kid to the school in the
same vehicle?" he said, confirming Ladner resident Kirk Holifield was
a tragic example of being mistakenly gunned down in Richmond last January.

Holifield was driving the same make and model truck as a known
Persian gangster whose brother had been wounded in a late-night
shooting a few days earlier in Richmond's Dover Park, where 150 shots
were exchanged between rival groups. Holifield's murder remains unsolved.

"There is an absolute disregard by all these crime groups and the
violence remains and continues with total disregard for public
safety," Shinkaruk said.

"With shootings in public places near schools and in restaurants they
are really putting the public in absolute jeopardy. They were showing
no empathy or sympathy for anybody else at that school."

Shinkaruk said police can always use more resources in the battle
against organized crime.

"There are never enough resources. Nor do I think, quite frankly,
that there will ever be enough resources. Organized crime is now so
widespread."

Vancouver police Insp. Dean Robinson, in charge of the Gang Crime
Unit, said the same thing this week, saying the 17-member squad was
"stretched thin" and could use more officers.

But he also said Vancouver's gang squad, working with the firearms
interdiction unit, has made 25 gun seizures so far this year, mainly
while stopping gang members to check for weapons.

Vancouver police also work closely and share intelligence with other
police agencies to prevent gang crime, he said.

"We're absolutely convinced our strategies are effective," Robinson
said. "They [gang members] don't like doing business in Vancouver
because they're always being checked."

RCMP Insp. Dennis Fiorido said the number of crime groups continues
to rise in B.C., according to the most recent statistics for the
fiscal year that ended last spring.

"The law enforcement community in B.C. has identified 129 organized
crime groups operating in the province, up from 124 reported on in
2006," he said. And up from 108 identified in 2005.

Despite a net increase of just five, there were actually 42 new
criminal organizations identified while 10 groups were broken up by
police and therefore removed from the list, and another 27 became
inactive and are defunct, Fiorido said.

Within the groups on the list, the police have struck blows against
individual members through criminal charges, though the organizations
still thrive "as a credible threat to our communities," he said.

The addition of more than 40 new groups in part comes because police
are better able to identify and collect data on groups and may not be
simply the formation of brand new organizations.

Fiorido said the trends among B.C. crime groups remain consistent.

Outlaw motorcycle gangs top the list after so-called independent
crime groups, followed by Indo-Canadian and Asian gangs, each with
roughly the same number of organizations in the province.

The rest of the list consists of a mixture of Eastern European,
Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, and traditional Italian crime groups.

Supt. John Robin heads the three-year-old Integrated Gang Task Force,
which now has 60 officers from the RCMP and participating
municipalities tackling gang violence.

The task force is already making a difference, sometimes getting wind
of crimes while they are being plotted and intervening, he said.

"We have seen some reduction in shots fired across the Lower
Mainland," Robin said. "We are actually down from last year."

Part of the reduction could be that some of the street gangs who did
macho drive-bys and tit-for-tat hits are getting more sophisticated
in their approach to organized crime, he said.

"But we like to think we are having some impact. We have been
successful at getting ahead of a number of incidents and those don't
get reported in the press because nothing happens. We have actually
been successful at getting ahead of some of these things as they are
being planned or developed and actually being able to intercede on
them," Robin said.

A good example is the recent charges laid against blind quadriplegic
gangster Bal Buttar, who once confessed in The Vancouver Sun to a
series of gangland hits. While in a long-term care facility this past
summer, Buttar allegedly plotted with family friend Meena Jouhal to
hire a hitman and kill her husband.

Police got wind of the alleged plot, moved in and arrested the pair
without anyone being hurt.

"You look at that case, like a lot of the cases, it is a result of
better intelligence gathering. We think that's making a difference,"
Robin said.

"We have been stopping a lot of stuff, so that is having some impact
on the violence related to the gangs. That has been our target first
- -- trying to get the violence down -- the violence related to the
gangs, by stopping the flow of guns, by getting information that
let's us get ahead of when the events are being planned. Sometimes
that is difficult -- when you want to stop events before the public
is put at risk."

GANG CRIME DOWN IN 2007

But obviously there is public pressure with high-profile shootings
like the ones across the Lower Mainland this week.

"The events concern us a lot, but we are not going to stop those
altogether. But if you look at it, is it worse? No, I don't think it
is getting worse."

The task force began compiling statistics related to gang violence in
January 2006. And while it is too early to say there is a significant
shift, Staff Sgt. Gerry Denton said there were considerable
reductions in gang crime in the first five months of 2007 over the
first five months of 2006.

"Firearm involved incidents" were down to 360 from 371 over the same
period last year, he said.

That includes a 27-per-cent reduction in gang murders, a 16-per-cent
reduction in attempted murders, 26-per-cent drop in incidents where
shots were fired, and a whopping 85-per-cent decrease in the number
of kidnappings.

"Before we came along, these stats weren't kept," Denton said.

Kash Heed, West Vancouver's brand new police chief, has devoted much
of his law enforcement career to tackling gang violence, particularly
when he was in charge of Vancouver's south side in his long career
with the VPD.

He has seen the rise of Indo-Canadian gangs after the 1998 hit on
notorious cocaine trafficker Bindy Johal, whose high media profile
may have glamorized the criminal life for a new generation of youth.

Groups like the Independent Soldiers began using a title and wearing
patches a couple of years ago in Vancouver and have now expanded to
Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George, Calgary, and Toronto.

Heed said he believes too much of gang policing is reactive with not
enough regional strategic planning.

"There has to be a coordinated, comprehensive, assertive regional
strategy to deal with gang violence from an intervention point of
view, from a prevention point of view, to ensure the cycle of gang
violence is cracked within the region," he said.

"You need to develop expertise within those groups. You need to
develop the intelligence within those groups. However, when you start
to look at strategies to prevent the violence, this is where it has
to be coordinated and that is what is missing in this puzzle right now."

When one Lower Mainland city increases enforcement, the problem just
moves somewhere else, he said.

"If I have got substantial problems here and I put pressure on those
problems around gang behaviour, gang violence, we push that out of
the area but the violence carries on, the behaviour carries on in
other areas in the region," Heed said.

"If we are going to deal with this, it has to be a proactive response
as opposed to a reactive response and a lot of the agencies that are
dealing with this problem are from a reactionary point of view. It
has to change."

Police tend to focus on the bigger criminal picture when the violent
behaviour of gangsters should be tackled at earlier stages, he said.

"Look at their behaviour and deal with the behaviour, so you are not
always waiting for the end-all and be-all charge against them. Get
them for whatever activity they are involved in, regardless of
whether it it intimidation, drug trafficking, a driving infraction,
domestic violence. You go after that and you deal with that individual."

Chu said he believes Vancouver's 560,000 taxpayers are shouldering
too much of the burden of the region, policing gang problems that
arise because the city attracts gang members to downtown nightclubs
and sporting events.

As an example, he cited the city's summer fireworks festival, which
attracts crowds of 300,000, some of whom are gang members from the
suburbs who cause problems for police.

"We made our concerns known to the provincial government," Chu said,
adding he has asked the government for extra funding to police what
should be considered regional events.

INTEGRATION OF POLICE WORK 'IMPORTANT'

B.C. Solicitor General John Les said he's satisfied there are enough
police resources being committed to organized crime, particularly
since the formation of the Integrated Gang Task Force three years
ago. The force combines RCMP and police from Vancouver and other
municipalities in Metro Vancouver.

"The far greater integration of police work across the Lower Mainland
is also important. This is the kind of activity that doesn't at all
respect municipal or city boundaries. And we've got the Combined
Forces Special Enforcement Unit as well," Les said. "I think we have
deployed our police resources in a way that is much more likely to
give us success."

He said there are 900 more police officers across the province today
than there were six years ago.

"I know that we have got a lot more resources on it today than we did
four or five years ago. The police tell me that this approach is
working well and that they are getting results," Les said. "We have
had some pretty good beefing up of resources."

But Rob Gordon, director of the criminology department at Simon
Fraser University, said an integrated gang squad helps, but it's not enough.

"We desperately need regional police services," he said. "John Les
and others don't get it. They think integrated [police] teams is the
answer, but it isn't."

He said RCMP and other police forces know of more than 100 organized
crime groups, but many don't even get investigated because there
isn't a coordinated regional approach.

"They are not able to fully engage organized crime in B.C.," Gordon
said. "There needs to be a regional strategy to deal with this
problem -- and it is a problem."

He said public gang violence is a loud display of internal conflict
resolution. "It's a demonstration of power to inflict punishment," he
said. "It acts as a deterrent to others."

But such public displays undermine the confidence in the justice
system because they are demonstrations that they are resolving
conflicts above and beyond the law, Gordon said.

An issue that rarely gets discussed about the illegal drug industry,
he said, is that there are huge, largely tax-free profits, which have
the potential to be used to infiltrate the police through payoffs for
information.

"We had a Montreal detective who was found to be in the pay of an
organized crime group," Gordon said.

One solution to avoid corruption and decrease policing costs is to
legalize drugs such as marijuana -- he suggested growing B.C-grown
pot was the third-largest industry in B.C. -- and use the revenue for
more addiction treatment and other services.

He added: "It's not going to happen... because the Americans would
never stand for it." But it's the most obvious solution, he said.

Phil Moriarity, a former Vancouver police intelligence officer who
now heads a private security firm, InterGlobe Investigations
Services, says armed, violent criminals have been getting away with
too much for too long, undermining public confidence in the justice system.

The shocking events of this week will get worse if changes aren't
made, he said.

"There aren't a lot of consequences, even if they get caught," he
said of the armed gang members causing havoc. "I think we need to get tough."

He said the federal Liberals made changes to the parole system in the
1960s that put the rehabilitation of criminals ahead of public safety.

JUDGES COMPLAIN OF SENTENCING LIMITS

The entire justice system needs to work together, he said, instead of
each segment operating in its own silo.

Federal politicians need to make legislative changes to make public
safety the top priority, said Moriarity, who is also vice-chair of
the Vancouver Board of Trade's crime task force.

Those who are a danger to the public need to be taken off the
streets, be denied bail and kept in prison longer, which will reduce
the numbers of vulnerable young people at risk of being recruited by
gangs, especially young first-generation Canadians who feel alienated, he said.

Judges also privately complain they're bound by the sentencing limits
of the appeal courts, he said, but they should be speaking out,
telling politicians what needs to be changed, particularly the trial judges.

"Trial judges are the most intimately informed," said Moriarity. "If
the end game is supposed to be justice, we can at least strive for it."

[sidebar]

WHAT IS AN ORGANIZED CRIME GANG?

Section 467.1 of Canada's Criminal Code defines a "criminal
organization" as three or more persons in or outside of Canada
involved in the commission of one or more serious offences that would
likely result in the direct or indirect receipt of a material
benefit, including a financial benefit.

In 2007, 950 organized crime groups have been identified in Canada
(up from 800 in 2006; police say the increase is attributed directly
to the law enforcement community's ability to better detect,
identify, collect information on, and report on criminal
organizations and individuals.)

In B.C. this year, 129 organized crime groups have been identified,
up from 124 in 2006 and 108 identified in 2005.

Police say each member of a gang usually has a "crew" of trusted
underlings who distribute drugs across Canada and sell to
street-level dealers. Most gangs don't have names, but some are
groupings of criminals with similar ethnic backgrounds, although some
are multi-ethic, having members who are Caucasian, Italian,
Vietnamese and Chinese.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE MAJOR PLAYERS:

- - INDO-CANADIAN GANGS

One of the new gangs that arose in the last five years was the
Independent Soldiers, which has about 25 members in B.C. Initially
formed in South Vancouver, the gang has expanded to Kelowna,
Kamloops, Prince George, Calgary and Toronto. Specializes in
trafficking marijuana and cocaine, especially transporting across
Canada over the U.S. border.

Police estimate there are up to 200 Indo-Canadians involved in
organized crime activity. Most are well armed and violent,
responsible for dozens of unsolved murders and drive-by shootings in
the region.

One multi-ethic gang that has been recently on police radar is the UN
gang, which was first seen in Abbotsford and Chilliwack. Involved in
drug trafficking and violence as an enforcement tool.

- - HELLS ANGELS

Police say this gang is the most visible in B.C., mainly because
members wear their "colours" -- the trademark winged death's head --
on their backs. Membership is estimated at 200 in B.C. A recent trial
of a Vancouver Hells Angels member heard testimony of how a biker
paid a "cook" to make meth amphetamine (crystal meth), which was then
distributed to dealers to be sold on the street.

Police allege Hells Angels members are involved in marijuana growing
operations and exchange B.C. bud for cocaine across the U.S. border.
The value of the marijuana trade has been estimated at $7 billion a
year in B.C. Police say growing operations are being used by all
crime groups to fund criminal activity.

- - ASIAN GANGS

Involved in smuggling heroin from Asia, computer banking fraud,
including identity theft and cloning credit cards. Also involved in
people-smuggling into Canada and the U.S., theft of exotic cars and
SUVs for shipment to Asia, loansharking, gun dealing and contract
murders. Police provide no estimate on the number of members.

LAST WEEK'S FLURRY OF SHOOTINGS:

- - Sept. 8, 9 p.m. - At least six shots were fired into a house in the
900 block of East 54th Avenue by occupants of a passing car. There
were four people inside the house at the time, but no one was
injured. One of the male occupants is known to police.

- - Sept. 8, 11:15 p.m. Two people were sent to hospital with gunshot
wounds after masked gunmen fired several shots through a plate glass
window of Quattro on Fourth restaurant at 2611 W. 4th Ave. The target
was 29-year-old Gurmit Singh Dhak, a well-known figure in gang
circles and no stranger to gunfire. Two years ago, he was charged
with uttering threats to Vancouver police, who had stopped Dhak
driving his Lexus SUV after it had been shot up outside Club Uranus,
a strip bar on East Broadway.

The South Vancouver resident had also been convicted of second-degree
murder in 2001 for the shooting death of 19-year-old Doan Minh Vu,
who was shot in the head by a passenger in Dhak's vehicle after Dhak
lowered the window so the shooter could take aim.

Dhak appealed his murder conviction, which was replaced by a
manslaughter conviction and he was sentenced to seven years and six
months. He was credited with time served, resulting in a net sentence
of one year and four months. His sentence expired Aug. 21, 2004.

(After being closed this week for renovations, Quattro reopened Friday night.)

- - Sept. 9, 3 a.m. - A shot was fired in the lane of the 800-block of
East 22nd Avenue. This was related to an earlier assault in which a
19-year-old woman was allegedly punched twice by her 25-year-old
boyfriend. She returned home to her family, who later heard the shot
and saw someone walking away in the alley. Police arrested a
25-year-old Burnaby man, who was still in the area. He has been
charged with assault.

- - Sept. 9, 3:27 a.m. - Residents reported hearing shots in the area
of Victoria Drive and Hastings Street and seeing a group of people in
a dark blue Honda firing a handgun out the window. Police were unable
to find any casings or other evidence.

- - Sept. 9, 4:17 a.m. - Officers called to the 3400-block of East 22nd
Avenue after a report of shots fired. Police found three .45-calibre
shell casings. No damage to any property was found.

- - Sept. 11, 8:15 a.m. -- Len Pelletier, 41, a Langley man with
alleged Hells Angels connections, was shot several times after trying
to drop off his teenage son at a school. He was driving a Hummer that
crashed in a ditch after being chased by another car with armed
assailants firing at him.

"He's very well known to police and an associate of a number of
full-patch Hells Angels," Vancouver RCMP Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, head
of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs Unit, said of the shooting victim. He
said the man's two teenage sons were also known to police.