NEIGHBOURHOOD'S NOW AN OPEN-AIR BAZAAR

When you're behind the counter of an all-night convenience store in the sort
of neighbourhood where that kind of thing happens, there are certain things
you try hard not to notice.

"No names, please. Rather not get my ass shot off, if you don't mind," said
the unnamed clerk. His workplace is right next to the scene of Saturday
night's murder of a gang associate on Clareview Road.

"The dealers are here every night in our parking lot, doing business. Every
night. You can call the cops, and I do, but they'll be long gone by the time
the cops show up.

"Hell no, I don't live in this neighbourhood. I'd never live here. This is a
bad neighbourhood, and it seems to be getting worse all the time. And I've
got a 14-year-old daughter."

Meantime, if you have kids and you're living in the Riverpoint area around
Clareview and 132 A Avenue, near where the shooting took place, you're
probably asking yourself some uncomfortable questions today.

Like, what if I'd been pushing my kid on the swing in the park across the
street, when that gun-toting maniac decided to hand-deliver a street message
wrapped in a sports sock? What if the bullet had gone wide?

And why the hell is this happening here, in what's supposed to be a green
slice of dull suburbia in northeast Edmonton?

"I'm getting out of here. My kids are terrified," said 'Keith,' an area
resident who - fearing reprisals - also asked not to be named.

"I've got nothing but sympathy for the police - they just don't have the
resources. My son went to (Anne Fitzgerald Catholic), and he was always
being offered LSD, pot, mushrooms. As soon as the sun goes down, this is a
bad place to be."

"There are too many drugs here, too many fights," said another area resident
who's keeping her name to herself.

"I don't want to get involved, please. My husband works night shifts and I
am frightened for me and my son, home alone when this is happening. It's all
over this place, it's getting worse.

"The police are coming here all the time, every week they're here to arrest
someone, but what can they do? They can't search everyone's house."

Ask the people who've been living in the district for better than 10 years,
and they'll tell you they've watched their neighbourhood turn from a quiet
cul-de-sac for young families into an open-air bazaar for the drug trade.

"Good God, they're selling 'round the clock!" said an exasperated Kathy
Knox. She takes care of three day-home kids on top of her three foster
children.

They often play in the park near where the shooting took place; mere chance
kept them away from the park Saturday night.

"You see them in the parking lot at Bannerman Elementary as early as 7:30
p.m., trading cash for drugs. Sometimes they're there all night until the
early morning, playing basketball and selling. You know, kids in their teens
with the souped-up Civics and Acuras."

The police know about the problem, said Knox, and they come when they're
called. But they're never around long enough to keep the dealers scattered.

"Look, I'm not criticizing the city cops, right? They do a good job," she
said. "But we need to see more of them.

"We need foot patrols, undercover cops in the park across from the schools,
just looking over things like they're dads watching their kids play."

Keith said he knows the drug trade is growing in Edmonton's suburbs, and
it's bringing its own brand of violence along.

"My cousin's a cop in the west end. He says it's the same deal in the 'burbs
out there," he said. "Property values go up, business follows. Drug business
is like any other business. It goes where the money is.

"I grew up in a small town in Alberta, and so did my wife. This is not how
we want to live. We know all this publicity about the killing is going to be
bad for the sale price on our house, but what can we do?

"I don't want my children to be around this. We're selling up, moving out to
the country.

"I just don't know if we can get far enough away, is all."