DRUGS 'N GUNS

Police Say Drug Crime Has Links To Lower Mainland Gangs, But There Is
No Formal Network In The Capital

The drugs that plague Greater Victoria's streets come in a steady flow
from the mainland, but even with recent cases of gun violence and
seizures linked to the drug trade, police say there are still no signs
the Capital has imported the kind of gang scene that riddles Vancouver.

"There are definitely organized groups of individuals who are engaged
in drug trafficking in Victoria," said Const. Connor King, a Victoria
police department drug investigator.

They're small bands of young men with minimal hierarchy, mostly from
the South Island, whose ties and rivalries are based entirely on
economics, not turf.

While local traffickers buy and sell drugs and even socialize with
outlaw motorcycle groups and Asian and Indo-Canadian street gangs,
King said none of those larger groups have a base of operations in the
region.

"We're not seeing gangs setting up shop here. We're not seeing gangs
operating in Vancouver coming over and setting up satellite groups
here," said King.

"We're definitely seeing the drugs and since we're seeing the drugs,
people here are conducting business with the gangs in Vancouver."

Recent weeks have seen several reminders around the Capital Region of
the connection between drug trafficking and violence, though police
haven't confirmed any of them are linked to organized groups of any
size.

In a Nov. 11 home invasion police described as targeted a shot was
fired, though nobody was injured.

Hours later, police executed a search warrant on the Wark Street and
found a handgun, bullet-proof vest, ammunition, cocaine, ecstasy and
marijuana.

Then in the early morning hours of Nov. 22, gunmen fired five bullets
into a house on Canterbury Road in Saanich in a drive-by attack. The
people inside initially refused to co-operate with police.

In the next two weeks, two men in their 20s were found carrying
cocaine and loaded handguns during traffic stops in downtown Victoria.

All of this while a Saanich teen, Brent William Van Buskirk, recently
convicted in the 2004 murder of Manjinder Singh (Ravi) Nutt, went on
trial in Vancouver for conspiring to attack a Surrey nightclub.

The cases have all the hallmarks of organized crime, said Rob Gordon,
a former police officer and now chairman of the criminology program at
Simon Fraser University.

"Sometimes they conflict with each other, they have disagreements over
things and at that point you often see the shootings taking place."

But Saanich police spokesman Sgt. John Price said there's no
indication of any kind of escalation.

Police in the region know who the local traffickers are, and crime
connected to drugs comes in waves, as known players are caught, tried,
sent to prison and then released.

"These guys all get out at the same time, hook up, reacquaint
themselves, get into some grief... and off to the slammer they go
again, and we see our crime wave dip. It's cyclic," said Price.

"I haven't seen anything reading what I've been reading that would
cause me to be concerned that there's any kind of increase in violent
crime."

Price and King both say departments around the Capital Region have
been improving co-operation and information sharing through more
regular meetings between investigators.

"I know there's a small group of people out there that like to believe
we're all operating in isolation, but it's just not the case," said
Price.

He said technology has been a boon, with all police forces in B.C. now
sharing an integrated database tracking offenders and their
associations.

Police have a very good idea of who is moving drugs back and forth
from Vancouver Island, said RCMP Supt. Doug Kiloh of the B.C. Combined
Forces Special Enforcement Unit. But having that intelligence doesn't
necessarily make it easier to stop the flow, he said.

"To say that the Island has limited routes to get things over, it
doesn't limit the imagination of how those routes are used, when
they're used, what tools they have to do them and what sophistication
there is to do them," said Kiloh.

A number of obstacles exist for police, from the volume of traffic at
B.C. Ferries terminals, to the use of float planes or small boats to
move drug shipments by hard-to-patrol routes.

Gordon suggests one way to stem the flow would be an overhaul of the
policing system throughout the province.

"Certainly the re-organization of police services in B.C. is long
overdue. Organized crime is better organized than police are and you
can't beat organized crime with disorganized police," he said.

But current moves by the province to integrate policing services will
place too much power in the RCMP's hands, he warned.

What's needed is a team similar to B.C.'s Co-ordinated Law Enforcement
Unit, disbanded by the province in 1998. CLEU consisted of RCMP, local
police forces, border agencies and, importantly, civilian oversight.

"I'm convinced if you were to provide the RCMP with a big bag of cash
to fight organized crime, they'd waste it in no time at all, there
would be no accountability," said Gordon.