Vancouver's Fraser Valley - 1929 Chicago???

[V2-OMG!]

The pastoral tranquility of the Fraser Valley has been shattered the last couple of weeks by rampant gang violence.

Every day brings another bullet-riddled "high-end SUV or sports car," with a dead driver at the wheel.

Last week there was a shoot-out right in front of the Langley IGA supermarket. Shoppers were diving for their life. Four innocent members of the public have been killed because of mistaken identity. The gangsters don't even check twice before shooting! If someone is on a rival gang's hit list and you happen to drive the same vehicle as the targeted hit,
your life is very much in danger! They do not check before blasting away with their semi-automatic machine guns!

This morning has brought two more shootings. One suspected gang member was injured in his Range Rover. The other was not so lucky, but this one is different because the victim is a woman. Shot while driving through an intersection in her Cadillac sports sedan - her baby in the back. As the Cadillac rolled along with its very dead driver, another motorist put his hand through the shattered driver's window and steered it into a tree.

What is unusual is this victim is a woman. If it is a gangland slaying, they are breaking new ground. Even the mafia had a HANDS OFF code when it came to wives and girlfriends.

This is scarey chit, man. I'm even thinking twice before venturing out.

Police say all these creeps are "known" to them, but are saddled when it comes to laying a charge that will stick.

THIS HAS TO BE STOPPED! WE'RE ALL VERY NERVOUS AND MAD! What the hell do we do now?????

[2R]

Return fire and those cowards will run away

[Nark]

Return fire with what?

I'm highly trained with firearms, and yet when I come to Canada I can't even think, let alone posses my pistol that I carry down here. Why? Because they probably think I'm going to shoot a mother driving a Cadillac.

Glad to see the Gun registry is a raging success!!




PS. I got a letter from the RCMP reminding me to renew my PAL. I should write a letter back telling them not to hold their breath.

[Cat Driver]

We have to put some judges in jail that keep letting these gangsters run free.

A few years in the slammer as a bitch for those who like sodomization as an exercise would maybe be just about right for some of our judges.

[Doc]

Police say all these creeps are "known" to them,

Well? It gets dark every night where I live......maybe the cops need to watch the movie, "Magnum Force".....you'd only have to do a couple. Short term pain, for long term gain.....they could even "contract" out the job. What's good for the goose.....a man's got to do, what a man's got to do....covert action....dark ops.....there are answers.....just got to have the pills to use them..

[Rowdy]

And this is why I'm TOTALLY OPPOSED to banning body armour. FFS. I can't walk around in what was a nice quiet community without worry about some random slumlord drug dealer in his pimpin SUV being shot at by a rival douchebag? BTW- I went to high school with one of the boys that was shot. He was troubled even back then.

The local law enforcement has no problem ticketing and arresting these ASSHATS, yet the judges seem to do nothing about it. Maybe it's time we ditch these useless judges? Maybe it's time we treat gang warfare the way they treat street racing out here? Anyone suspected is charged and jailed. Hefty hefty fines for all around. Insurmountable amounts for bail etc etc.

I for one am picking up some hideable body armour. Maybe it's time to get my PAL?

Perhaps we need a masked vigilante to go around and take these tools and put em in a box six feet under.

[Wilbur]

Some of the women in these gangs are just as violent and dangerous as the men. I know of one that was running a crackhouse at night and chopping off fingers with an axe over unpaid $50 debts. By day she was a 23 yo mother taking her 3 yo to nursery school and parent and tot play groups at the local community centre.

There are a few contributing factors to the growing gang problem, but number one is the provincial courts. A charged gangsta will usually be facing a variety of charges ranging from fairly serious (using a gun) to fairly minor (possession of some dope). Crown plea bargains away the gun charges and gang connection evidence in exchange for a guilty plea to something like assault causing bodily harm or possession for the purpose of trafficking. The lame brain judge imposes a 1 year sentence if he's feeling really hardline that day, but gives the gangsta 2 for 1 credit for the time they spent remanded in custody awaiting their day in court. Knowing this credit is now automatic the gangsta purposely sat in jail refusing to ask for bail while his lawyer negotiated with crown. 5 months later a deal is reached, gangsta gets credit for 10 months served, has 2 months to go, earns one third of that off for good behaviour and hits the street a free man in a little over 5 weeks. In total, he spent just over 6 months in jail of a one year sentence he recieved after being in a mid day gun fight at your local Walmart parking lot. And, because the law says he was still innocent while on remand he could not be forced to take any programs in prison that might help him recoginize his thinking errors. The morning he's released he goes straight to one of his gangsta bro's, gets another gun, and is back at the crackshack that night.

Unfortunately, gangsta's view any sentence of about 3 years or less as nothing more than a cost of doing business. Sentences less than a year have no negative context at all; they're an opportunity to network and recruit within the local correctional centre. Sentences of 5 to 10 years are what they need, along with a proceeds of crime action against them. 5-10 gets them out of the lifestyle long enough that their gang ties and relationships are seriously eroded or severed, and they don't view the money they can make as worth that much of their life time.

This current gang problem is going to get worse before it gets better. The HA's have lost their absolute control of the drug trade and are now being openly challenged by some newer groups that pay them little respect. The result is instability and a power struggle as rivals fight for control. The main players are the HA's and their puppet clubs, Red Scorpions, IS (Independent Soldiers), and UN (United Nations). The problem is these newer gangs lack the strong organization and internal discipline of the HA's, and therefore rely on gratuitous violence to a degree not seen before.

[Hedley]

I suppose the imagery of a gun-toting lone lawman
single-handedly taking on these punk gangs and
delivering lead poison by the pound would be nirvana
to law-abiding citizens everywhere - just look at
the commercial success of the latest Clint Eastwood
movie, and he's what, 85?

But I prefer a more thoughtful approach. Why do
these gangs prosper? Pretty clearly, because
they're willing to break (drug) laws, and profit
immensely from them.

I'm no genius, but the long-term cure to these
gangs would be to remove their economic reason
for being.

If you don't remove the root cause, if you stamp
one out, another one will simply pop up again.

I know, too cerebral. Go see the latest Clint
Eastwood movie

[v6g]

I'm no genius, but the long-term cure to these
gangs would be to remove their economic reason
for being.

-True but how do you do that? If you legalize marijuana, the US have said they would close the border. Admittedly that was under the previous regime but think of the knock-on economic effects.

I can't see much way of changing these crimes other than much stiffer penalties for carry a gun.

[niss]

Good old charlie wouldn't @#$! around...


Just a question though, do you guys get in the Vancouver papers all the shootings in Toronto, because honestly you wouldn't really know there was a problem over there from here in the day to day news.

[v6g]

Just a question though, do you guys get in the Vancouver papers all the shootings in Toronto, because honestly you wouldn't really know there was a problem over there from here in the day to day news.

"Toronto" - where's that? Is that past Calgary?

[Rowdy]

I have no use for pot smokers, the attitude and the ill effects. However.. make some money during these bad economic times, kill the gangs and the warfare by legalizing and then TAXING THE SHIT out of marijauna. Turn illegal sales into federal offences and serve anyone caught ridiculous amounts of jail time and fines... that'd cut it right down and we'd end up with some pretty heavy revenue from it. That way you could also control the amounts of THC in said products and closely monitor whatever else was going on.

In the end, the only time the gov. will step up is when it comes to money!


typical torontonian answer "no matter what it's about we've either got it way better or way worse than you do"

[niss]

I have no use for pot smokers, the attitude and the ill effects. However.. make some money during these bad economic times, kill the gangs and the warfare by legalizing and then TAXING THE SHIT out of marijauna. Turn illegal sales into federal offences and serve anyone caught ridiculous amounts of jail time and fines... that'd cut it right down and we'd end up with some pretty heavy revenue from it. That way you could also control the amounts of THC in said products and closely monitor whatever else was going on.

In the end, the only time the gov. will step up is when it comes to money!


typical torontonian answer "no matter what it's about we've either got it way better or way worse than you do"

Nah Man, it was a serious question, I read in the papers all the time about the murders in toronto but nothing really about your end of the country. As far as I know Vancouver is the garden of eden, do you guys get coverage like that or do you also hear about every murder in toronto?

[. ._]

Legalize all dope. Let the customers all OD, and that's the end of gangs.

Just throwing that one out there. Playing devil's advocate.

-istp

[Topspin]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/588508

Daylight shooting stuns Vancouver suburb

Woman shot dead in Surrey while driving with boy; incident follows a rash of gang-related killings

Feb 17, 2009 04:30 AM
Petti Fong
WESTERN CANADA BUREAU CHIEF

VANCOUVER – The fatal shooting of a young woman driving down a busy street yesterday morning with a 4-year-old boy in the backseat has stunned even veteran police investigators.

Police aren't saying yet whether the shooting in the suburb of Surrey is related to a gang turf war that has left six dead in the last 10 days in the Metro Vancouver area.

The boy, strapped into the woman's white Cadillac, was unharmed. Police would not reveal the victim's relationship to the child.

The brazenness of the daylight attack has taken even police by surprise.

"When you start throwing young kids in the mix there, regardless of who this woman was and what her affiliations may or may not have been, it really is irrelevant when there's a child sitting in the back," said Cpl. Peter Thiessen, of the B.C. Integrated Gang Task Force.

"Clearly these shooters, they have no bloody conscience. It's that simple."

It was the second shooting in Surrey in less than 12 hours.

Late Sunday night, a man was wounded when an SUV drove up beside his Range Rover and someone opened fire, wounding him in the shoulder.

"We can't say if it's gang warfare," Cpl. Dale Carr with the RCMP's Integrated Homicide Unit, said of the woman's shooting. "That the little boy was in the car when she was shot, that was very horrific. It's beyond comprehension, frankly."



Police are trying to determine whether the woman was shot by someone on the street or by someone in a passing vehicle.

In recent days, area residents have been forced to dive for cover at the supermarket and in the parking lot of shopping centres and strip malls.

In the Range Rover shooting, police said the driver was "merely an acquaintance of a person" involved in drugs and gang culture.

The cycle of gang shootings appears to have been triggered by the shooting death Feb. 3 of Raphael Baldini, a 21-year-old who was linked to an infamous mass killing in October 2007, when six people were killed in a Surrey apartment.

Baldini held the lease on the apartment where the six bodies were found. Two of the victims, one who lived across from the apartment and a gas fireplace repairman, were innocent bystanders. There have been no arrests.

The family of another innocent victim caught in the recent violence also stepped forward last week. Jonathan Barber, a car stereo installer was shot and killed last May while driving a Porsche that belonged to a known gang associate.

On the same day Baldini was shot while sitting in his SUV at a mall, a woman, Brianna Kinnear, who had served time for drug trafficking was killed while in her car.

Last week, Premier Gordon Campbell announced the province will assign more officers and prosecutors to tackle gang-related crime.

With files from The Canadian Press

[Nark]

I too can play devils advocate.

Right now, while marijuana is illegal in all aspects, people are growing it faster than the police can shut down these operations. Hence the price of it hasn't changed much in the last number of years.

Let's say the government does legalize the sale of marijuana in order to gain revenue from the sales.
Are these same people who grow it now, going to pay the tax which was levied? The next argument will be stiffer tax evasion laws.



How about enforcing the laws they have now?

[Four1oh]

Why is Vancouver getting all the news about this shit? There's a constant barrage of gang violence in every major city(and a few minor ones too) in Canada!

Public caught in crossfire as gang violence escalates
Illicit drug wars causing more 'collateral damage'
Richard Foot, Canwest News Service
Published: Saturday, February 14, 2009
C anada's cities are in the grip of a sharp, new cycle of gang violence fuelled by the country's growing appetite for illicit drugs and competition among the organized crime groups that supply them, say police and other experts.
While organized crime wars are not new to Canada, a recent wave of gangland shootings, from Halifax to Calgary to Vancouver, has occurred alarmingly in public places where citizens least expect bullets to be flying. The fear and outrage that settled on Toronto in 2005 when 15-year-old Jane Creba was killed in a shootout in a downtown shopping area has arrived in other cities, whose innocent citizens are being hit.

more... http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/ne ... f8c524a68d

[Wilbur]

Vancouver's getting the attention these days because the problem is bigger here than any other major Canadian city on a per capita basis. The lower mainland also has fairly inefficient policing and fewer cops per capita then most, if not all, major Canadian cities. The gangs operate seemlessly from Vancouver out to about the Chilliwack - Aggaziz area. That means they operate within the jurisdiction of at least 13 different RCMP detatchments, 6 separate municipal police departments, and Transit Police. The police try to work cooperatively, create joint task forces, etc, but it can never be as efficient, effective, and coordinated as one unified regional force would be.

Anyone who thinks legalizing the marijuana or the entire drug trade will make organized crime disappear is a fool. They will simply move on to other forms of drugs and crime. Did the US get rid of organized crime when they ended prohibition and legalized booze? No. It slowed it down a bit, but only until the crime groups made the switch to drugs. Neither did prohibition give rise to organized crime groups - they existed before and just used prohibition as a new opportunity to make money. Legalize drugs and they will find some other way of making money by victimizing other people and society. That's what they do, and that's the only way they know how to make money.

[Hedley]

Clearly, the government should outlaw alcohol and tobacco
as well, because the same argument applies against them
that applies to illegal recreational pharmeceuticals.

Is consistency a bad thing?

[Doc]

Back in the good old days, when I used to build monsters in my basement, the villagers would get wind of my pastime and march on my castle carrying torches and stakes! We could do the same thing today. We outnumber gang member by about 30 million to ONE! Aluminum baseball bats are fairly cheap. But we live in a pussy society. John Wayne is dead. Clint is too long in the tooth.....and, is Charlie still even alive? . wouldn't put up with this shit. It's never going to get any better left to the usual devices.

[Cat Driver]

The answer is simple, hire some of the SAS guys that work as mercenaries and give them access to the police records and the let them talk to the cops who know who these guys are.

End of problem.

[Lurch]

Why is nobody stating the obvious

Deport the SOBs

There is a reason the gangs in YYC call themselves the FOB (fresh off the Boat)

If you aren't born in Canada and you are arrested for anything over and above a misdemeanor, you are held without bail, tried, and if convicted you are on the first steam boat home and blacklisted from ever being allowed back into the country. To ensure they don't come back under a new name and continue where they left off, give them a retinal scan, if they are re-arrested in this country they are thrown in jail for 5 years and deported out again at the end of their sentence. Seize whatever property they have to pay their invoice for their jail time.

I'm so sick of this Canadian pat them on the head, wipe their butt, and send them on their way.

The US is up to their eye balls in this and the last thing we need up here is the same war zones. If they are Canadians then they rot in jail for a few years to think things over.

Oh I'm sorry not PC, IDGARA

Lurch

Rant Over, Flame away

[BoostedNihilist]

I have no use for pot smokers, the attitude and the ill effects. However.. make some money during these bad economic times, kill the gangs and the warfare by legalizing and then TAXING THE SHIT out of marijauna. Turn illegal sales into federal offences and serve anyone caught ridiculous amounts of jail time and fines... that'd cut it right down and we'd end up with some pretty heavy revenue from it. That way you could also control the amounts of THC in said products and closely monitor whatever else was going on.

I pretty much agreed with the whole taxing the shit out of it position.. but in the end I came to the conclusion that simply moving the distribution from one group of organized crime figures to the government is truely a six of one half dozen of the other scenario. I can't really make a clear distinction between the two groups. I mean, tax revenue blah blah blah. I won't see a damned penny out of that extra revenue and the HA at least buy stuff in our communities. Not to mention all the wonderful new laws we (communities) will have to deal with and of course all of those wonderful new government position we will have to staff with some douchebag who hates you and has fun slowly torturing you into submission. At least the gangs just blast you and leave you for dead... much more humane than some of our precious govermnent agencies..

cliff note: One thing I know for a fact is the HA have been a far smaller pain in my rectum than the hee haw comedy hour we have over there in ontario and down there in victoria.

edit:

To ensure they don't come back under a new name and continue where they left off, give them a retinal scan, if they are re-arrested in this country they are thrown in jail for 5 years and deported out again at the end of their sentence. Seize whatever property they have to pay their invoice for their jail time.

Mine would read

To ensure they don't come back under a new name and continue where they left off, give them a retinal scan, if they are re-arrested in this country they are again deported on the first steamboat back to the motherland however this time they are dropped off halfway.

[Doc]

The answer is simple, hire some of the SAS guys that work as mercenaries and give them access to the police records and the let them talk to the cops who know who these guys are.

End of problem.

This is THE answer! Tax etc will not work. Nobody cares. Neither will deportation. Unless somebody grows the balls to do something along the lines of Cat's post, the problem will outlive us all.

[Four1oh]

Didn't Tom Clancy write a book about a retired Green Beret who went after a gang? It was a wonderful fantasy.